— i ■■■■ ^. »n^ ".^ ^o-^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) ^/ k ^ .'^ Ak {< ^.o «:»t imprlm6e sont filmds en commengant par ie premier plat et en terminant soit par la dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par Ie second plat, selon ^e cas. Tous les autrus exemplaires originaux sont f!lm6s en commenpant par ia premidre page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte uns telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaltra sur la dernldre imnge de cheque diicrofiche, selon ie cas: Ie symbole — ► signlfie "A SUIVRE ". Ie symbole V signifie "FIN". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely includt^H in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagramr illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre filmds d dcs taux de rMuction diffirents. Lorsque Ie document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul ciich6, ii est film6 d partir de r«>ngle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en uas, en prenant Ie nombre d'images ndcas^aire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ^sUct ^oj^mn OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH EDITED, WITH NOTES BY M. F. LIBBY, B.A. Mng^/itA Master of thf yameson Avenue Coll, Inst., Teronte 'Co?ne eut Into t\vt light of thlnaa- liCt Watupc be yoxip teaehcp." TORONTO THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, Limited £39a -■WoRDJ,WO»T»l % Sr < jii'j-v'i'p'«0«<«i^HMPBM^iiBaipmfpiipmMp /^/f^S'SS /-, ^ wmmmim,_ 18930 6 Iil09 Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-two, by Thk Copp, Clark Oa hmnitD, in tlie Office of the Minister of Agriculture. * ikouni ^ « '^Tl '*' '"•'""'^^''^ '^d.antag, of a „ery sensible. *«.T „:;;;* V""" ""*/*"* «'* «'"^'^ '^"^y^^ the Greek tragic poets, he made ua read Shakespeare and Milton as lessons ■ <«ultheg were the lessons, *oo. which re<:yired most time and trouble to bring up, so as to escape his censure. I learnsd from him that S^rUT/ f "if!" ''^'"*^'"' •-«'-^'i'. that of the wildest TmJ,* L^ "^ * '"""' "'*''""''' '''that of science: and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent upon more, and more fugltlae causes. "In the truly great po4.ts " he would ^'^ tr 'I " ''^"""' «"'»"«*'«' ""< only for eoery word, but fo.- th* position of every word," -Coleridge's "Blographla Uterarla." •ffrrmwm^mmfff^n^^iimr f ._JI^.,lll||ll^iiP^^Wip ^^^mmmmmmtm «-■' PREFACE. At first sight the extreme simplicity of the greater number of these selections from Wordsworth may app<)ar to make editing and annotating almost superfluous, but a closer vie'V' will reveal the truth that the poet's eimplicity is not the dir*x5t method of childhood, but rather of a profound (however suo- cesaful) manhood guided by both instinotWe and acquired rules of art Glasses in our schools may be expected to understand the thoughts and feelings of the simpler poems here more readily than they would understand the average work of poets like Coleridge and Byron ; while the more difficult poems hor« can hai'dly prove so obscure as the most difficult poems of other gi-eat poets. Indeed the simplicity of these poems is likely to be the chief stumbling-block to those who study them. It is in storm, passion, and excess, that the untrained find most to interest them whether in picture, play, or real life. So in poetry, the warlike lines of Scott, the straining and heaving cadences of Byron, and the morbid, tear-starting beauty of parts of Lon^:- fellow and Tennyson, seize upon the young student with powet* and stir him into feeling. But these poets are to Wordsworth as wine to water, as a scene of revelry to a homely evening, as a Christmas dinner to a fiugal meal. Is it the nature of boys and girls to prefer the plain, whole- some, healthful thoughts and feelings of this poet, thoughts that never err from the line of truth and good sense, and feelings that never stir the heart to undue activity, is it their nature to prefer these to the tumult and excitement of more VI ',"'• I m^^^mtf^^mmmmmmmfi PRErACB. wfmmm popular writers] Is it poeeible to make them love the frui^:l and Puntan diet of Wordsworth without firet making them as simple, as wise, and as passionless? However one may reply to these questions one will not deny that the reverence, and nioSWORTH. 15 has been ho long celebrated that although he still liyefi I may be permitted to name him) for France. Several of thetio, again, haye evidently gifts and excellences to which Wordsworth can make no pretension. But in real poetical achievement it geems to me indubitable that to Wordsworth, here again, belongs the palm. It seems to me tJiat Wordsworth has left behind him a body of poetical work which wears, and will wear, better on the whole than the performance of any one of these personages, so far more brilliant and celebrated, most of them tnan the homely poet of Rydal. Wordsworth's perform- ance in poetry is on the whole, in [;ower, in interest, in the qualities which give enduiing freshness, superior to theira. This is a high claim to make for Wordsworth. But if it is a just claim, if Wordsworth's place among the poets who have appeared in the last two or three centuries is after Shakspeare, Moliire, Milton, Goethe, indeed, but before all the rest, then in time Wordsworth will have his due. We shall recognise him in his place, as we recognise Shakspeare and Milton ; |ind not only we ourselves shall recognise him, but he will be recognised by Europe also. Meanwhile, those who recognise him already may do wellj^perhaps, to ask themselves whether there are not in the case of Wordsworth certain special obstacles which hinder or delay his due recognition by othei-s, and whether these obstacles are not in some measure remova- able. The JSxcuraion and the Prelude, his poems of greatest bulk, are by no means Wordsworth's best work. His best work is in his shorter pieces, and many indeed are there of these which are of firet-rate excellence. But in his seven volumes the pieceo of high merit are mingled with a mass of pieces very inferior |o them ; so infeiior to them that it seems wonderful how the lame poet should have produced both. Shakspeare frequently lines and passages in a strain quite false, and which are itirely unworthy of him. But one can imagine his smiling if iWHP 16 ESSAY ON WORDSWORTH. ( u. ,,. ■}' ±'iit one oould meet him in the Elysian Fields and tell him so; smiling and replying that he knew it perfectly well himself, and what did it matter t But with Wordsworth the case is different. Work altogether infeiior, work quite uninspired, flat and dull, is produced by him with evident unconsciousness of its defects, and h^ presents it to us with the same faith and seriousness as his best work. Now a drama or an epic fill the mind, and one does not look beyond them ; but in a collection of short pieces the impression made by one piece requires to be continued and sustained by the piece following. In reading Wordswot-th the impression made by one of his fine pieces is too often dulled and spoiled by a very inferior piece coming after it. Wordsworth composed vei-Mes during a space of some sixty years ; and it is no exaggeration to say that within one single decade of those years, between 1798 and 180S. almost all his really first-rate work was produced. A mass of inferior work remains, work done before and after this golden i>iime, imbed- ding the first-rate work and clogging it, obstructing our approach to it, diilling, not unfrequently, the high-wrought mood with which we leave it. To be recognized far and wide as a great poet, to be possible and receivable as a classic, Wordsworth needs to be relieved of a great deal of the poetical ba^age which now encumbers him. To administer this relief is indis- pensable, unless he is to continue to be a poet for the few only^ a poet valued far below his real worth by the world. There is another thing. Woi*dsworth classified his poemi not according to any commonly received plan of arrangement, but according to a scheme of mental physiology. He has . poems of the fancy, poems of the imagination, poems of senti- ~ ment and reflection, and so on. His categories are ingeniou'^^' but far-fetched, and the i*esult of his employment of ihei^^ unsatisfactory. Poems are separated one from another whicf possess a kinship of subject or of treatment far more vital an ^ R88AY ON W0BD8W0BTII. 17 deep than the supposed unity of mental origin which wiia Wordsworth's reason for joining them with others. The tact of the Greeks in matters of this kind was infallible. We may rely upon it that we shall not improve upon the classi- fication adopted by the Greeks for kinds of poetry ; that their categories of epic, dramatic, lync, and so forth, have a natunil propriety, and should be adlieied to. It may sometimes soera doubtful to which of two categories a |K)em belongs ; whether this or that poem is to be called for instance, narrative or lyric, lyric or elegiac. But there is to be found in every good poem a strain, a preciominant note, which determines the poem as belonging to one of these kinds ratlior than the other ; and here is the best proof of the value of the classification, and of the advantage of adhering to it. Wordsworth's poems will never produce their due effect until they are freed from their present artificial arrangement, and grouped more naturally. Disengaged from the quantity of inferior work which now obscures them, the best poems of Wordsworth, I hear many people say, would indeed stand out in gj-eat beauty, but they would prove to be very few in number, scarcely more than half- a-dozen. I maintain, on the other hand, that what strikes me with admiration, what establishes in my opinion Wordsworth's superiority, is the great and ample body of powerful work which remains to him, even after all his inferior work has been cleared away. He gives us so ilmch to rest upon, so much which communicates his spirit and engages ours ! Thi \ is of very great importance. If it were a comparison of single pieces, "or of three or four pieces, by each poet, I do not say that Wordsworth would stand decisively above Grey, or ^illlLS, or Coleridge, or Keats, or Manzoni, or Heine. It is in ipler body of powerful work that I find his supericrity. work iti^elf, his work which counts, is not all of it, of of equal value. Some kinds of poetry are in themselv^ kinds than othei's. The ballad kind is a lower kind ; 18 BSHAY ON WOKDaWOUTH. fche didaotio kind, still more, is a lower kind. Poetry of this latter sort, cuuiitB, too, sometimeB, by its biographioal interest partly, not by its poetical interest pure and simple ; but then this can only be when the poet producing it has the power And importance of Wordsworth, a power and importance which he assuredly did not establish by such didactic poetry alone. Altogether, it is, I say, by the great body of poweiful and aig- niticant work which ramains to him, after every reduction and deduction has been made, that Wordsworth's superiority ia proved. v To exhibit this body of Wordsworth's bast work, to clear away obstructions from around it, and to let it speak for itself, is what every lover of Wordsworth should desire. Until this has been done, Wordsworth, whom we, to whom he is dear, all of us know and feel to be so great a poet, has not had a fair chance before the world. When once it has been done, he will make his way best not by our advocacy of him, but by his own wort^ and power. We may safely leave him to make his way thus, we who believe that a superior worth and power in poetry finds in mankind a sense responsive to it and disposed at last to recognize it. Yet at the outset, before he has been duly known and recognized, we may do Wordsworth a service, perhaps, in indicating in what his superior power and woi*th will be found to consist, and in what it will not. Long ago, in speaking of Homer, I said that the noble and profound application of ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic greatnesa I said that a great poet receives his dis- tinctive character of superiority from his application, under the conditions immutably fixed by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth, fjx)m his application, I say, to his subject, what, ever it may be, of the ideas " On man, on i^atore, and on human life," which he has acquired for himself. The line quoted is Wore K88AY ON WOKD8WOKTH. 19 worth's own j and liiH HUj»eriority aris«i from hiH powerful use, iu his best pieces, his powerful Hpi)lication to his subject, of ideas " on man, on nature, and on human life." Voltaire, with his signal acuteness, most truly remarked that " no nation has treated in poetry moral ideas with moi-e energy and depth than the English nation." And he adds : " There, it seems to me, is the great merit of the English poets." Vol- taire does not mean, by " treating in poetry moral ideas," the comi>osing moral and didactic poems : — that brings us but a very little way in poetry. He means just the same thing as was meant when I spoke above " of the noble and profound appli- cation of ideas to life ; " and he means the application of thene ideas under the conditions fixed for us by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth. If it is said that to call these ideas moroU ideas it is to introduce a strong and injurious limitation, I answer that it is to do nothing of t^ e kind, because moral ideas are really so main a part of human life. The question, how to live, is itself a moral idea ; and it is the question which most interests every man, and with which, in some way or other, he is perpetually occupied. A large sense is of couitie to be given to the term moral. Whatever beai-s upon the question, ** how to live," comes under it. *' Nor love thy life, nor hate ; but, what thou liv'st, live well ; how long or «hort, permit to heaven." .'?'. In those few lines, Milton utters, as every one at once per- ceives, a moral idea. Yes, but so too, when Keiits consoles the forward-bending lover on the Grecian Um, the lover arrested and presented in immortal relief by the sculptor's hand bei'ore he can kiss, with the line, •* For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair" — he utters a moral idea. When Shakespeare says, that 20 nSAT ON WORDSWOktTB. '* We are auch nttm As dreamt are made of, and our little life ^ Is rounded with a sleep," he utters a moral idea. Voltaire was right in thinking that the energetic and pro- found treatment of moral ideas, in this large sense, is what dis- tinguishes the English poetry. He sincerely meant praise, not dispraise or hint cf limitation ; and they err who suppose that poetic limitation is a necessary consequence of the fact, the fact being ^p^nted as Voltaire states it. If what distinguishes the greatest poets is their powei'ful and profound application of idjaa to life, which surely no good critic will deny, '-.hen to pre- fix: to the term ideas here the term moi'ai makes hardly any difference, because human life itself is in so preponderating a degree moral. It is important^ therefore, to hold fast to t^is : that poetry is at bottom a criticism of life ; that the grveatness of a })oet lies in a powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life, — to the question : How to live. Morals are often treated in a narrow and false fashion, they are bound up with systems of thought and belief which have had their day, they are fallen into the hands of pedants and professional dealers, they grow tiresome to some of us. ^\We find attraction, at times, even in a poetry of revolt against them ; in a poetry which might take for its motto Omar Kheyam's words : " Let us make up in the faivem for the time which -^e have wasted in the mosque/' Or we find attractions in a poetry indifierent to them, in a poetry where the oont«ntb may be what they will, but where the form is studied and exquisite We delude ourselves in either case ; and the best cure for oar delusion is to let our mi^ds rest upon that grreat and inexhaustible word lifsj until we Ijam to enter into its meaning. A poetry of revolt against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against life ; a poetry of indifierenoe towards moral ideas is a poetry of iudifference towards life {. SK ai:»"at.''isi iH ESSAY ON W0BD8W0RTH. 31 £pictetnB had a happy figure for thiiigH like t)ie play of the senses, or liteiury form and finish, or argunientiitive ingenuity, in comparison with " the bes^ and master thing " for us, as he called it, the concern, how to live. Some people were afraid of them, he said, or they disliked and undervalued them. Such people were wrong ; they were unthankful or cowardly. But the things might also be over-prized, and treated as final when they are not. They bear to life the relation which inns bear to home. '' As if a man, journeying horiie, and finding a nice inn on the road, and liking it, were to stay for ever at the inn ! Man, thou hast forgotten thine object ; thy journey was not to this but through thia. ' But this inn is taking.' And how many other inns, too, are taking, and how many fields and meadows I but as place|i of passage merely. You have an object, which is this: to get home, to do your duty to your family, friends, and fellow-countrymen, to attain inward free- dom, serenity, happincsi, coiitentment. Style takes your fancy, arguing takes your fancy, and you forget your home and want to make your abode with them and to stay with them, on the plea that they ore taking. Who denies that they are taking? but as places of passage, as inns. And when I say this, you suppose me to be attacking the care for style, the care for argu- ment. I am not ; I attack the resting in them, the not looking to the end which is beyond them." Now, when we come acrobS a poet like Th^phile Qautier, we have a poet who has taken up his abode at an inn, and never got farther. There may be inducements to this or that one of / US, at this or that moment, to find delight in him, to cleav^ to him ; but after all, we do not change the truth about him, — wo only stay ourselv^ in his inn along with him. And when we oome across a poet like Woi-dsworth, who sings, ** Of trath, of grandeur, beauty, love and hope. And melancholy fear sabdaed by faith, Of blewed oonaolatious in dJ>atre8B, 1/ J^ I I. I ! \ i- I 'I • m 22 KS8AY ON WORDSWORttt. Of moral strength and intellectual power. Of joy in widest commonalty Bprr>ad " — then we have a poet iutent on " the best and master thing," and who prosecutes his journey home. We say, for brevity's sake, that he deals with life, because he deals with that in which life really consists. This is what Voltaire means to praise in the English poets, — this dealing with what is really Ufa But always it is the mark of the gi*eatest poets that they deal with it ; and to say that the English poets are i-emarkable for dealing with it, is only another way of saying, what is true, that in poetry the Engush genius has especially shown its power. Wordsworth deals with it, and his greatness lies in his deal- , irg with it so powerfully. I have named a number of cele- brated i>oet8 above all of whom he, in my opinion, deserves to be placed. He is to be placed above poets like Voltaire, Dry- den, Pope, Lessing, Schiller, because these famous personages, with a thousand gifts and merits, never, or scarcely ever, attain the distinctive tuioent and utterance of the high and genuine poets — *' Quiqne pii vatet et Phoebo digna locuti," at all. Bums, Keats, Heine, not to speak of others in our list, have this accent ; — who can doubt it 1 And at the same time they have treasures of humour, felicity, passion, for which in Wordsworth we shall look in vain, W^here, then, is Words- worth's superiority 1 It is here; he dsals with more of life than they do ; hadeals with li/e,as^j^hQle, mora-poweifully. No Wordsworthian will doubt this. Nay, the fervent Wordsworthian will add, as Mr. Leslie Stephen do<», that Wordsworth's poetry is precious because his philosophy if Bound ; that his " ethical system is as distinctive and capable of exposition as Bishop Butler's ; " that his poetiy is informed by wFiSBffln KSSAY ON WORDSWORTH. n ideas which *' fall spontaneously into a scientific system of thought " But we must be on our guard against the Words- worthians, if we want to secure for Wordsworth his due rank as a poet The Wordsworthians are apt to praise him for the wrong things, and to lay far too much stress upon what they call his philosophy. His poetry is the reality, his philosophy,— so far, at least, as it may put on the form and habit of "a scientific system of thought," and the more that it puts them on, — is thb illusion. Perhaps we shall one day learn to make this proposition geneml, and to say : Poetry is the reality, philosophy the illusion. But in Wordswoith's case, at any rate, we cannot do him justice until we. dismiss his formal poilosophy. ITie Bxcuraion abounds with philosophy, and therefore the Excursion is to the Wordsworthian what it never can be to the disinterested lover of poetry,— a satisfactory work, ** Duty exists," says Wordsworth, in the Excursion ; and then he pro- ceeds thus : — .... *' Immutably ntrvive, For onr support, the measures and the forms. Which an abstract Intdlligenoe supplies, Whose kingdom ita, where time and space are not." And the Wordsworthian is delighted, and thinks that here is a sweet union of j>hilc3ophy and poetry. But the disinterested lover of pootry will feel that the lines carry us really not a step farther than the proposition which they ^ould interpret ; that they are a tissue of elevated but abstract verbiage, alien to the very nature of poetry. Ol let us come dii-ect to the centre of Wordsworth's philo- sophy, as ^'an ethical system, as distinctive and capable oi syttematic exposition as Bishop Butler's " : i: ti- 24 ESSAY OK WORDSWORTH. .... " One adequate support For the calami tius of mortal life Exists, one only ; — an assured belief That the procession of our fate, howe'er Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being Of infinite benevolence and power ; Whose everlasting purposes embrace All accidents, converting them to good." That is doctrine such as we hear in church too, religious and pliilosophic doctrine ; and the attached Wordsworthian loves pussjiges^of such doctrine, and brings them forward in proof of his poet's excellence. But however irue the doctrine may be, it has, as hero presented, none of the characters of poetic truth, the kind of truth which we require from a |K)et, and in which Wordsworth is really strong. Even the "intimations" of the famous Ode, those corner- stones of the supposed philosophic system of Wordsworth, — the idea of the bigh instincts and affections coming out in childhood, testifying of a divine home recently left, and fading away as our life proceeds, — this idea, of undeniable beauty as a play of fancy, has itself not the character of poetic truth of the best kind ; it has no real solidity. The instinct of delight in Naturo and her beauty had no doubt extraordinary strength in Wordsworth himself as a child. But to say that univeraally this instinct is mighty in childhood, and tends to die away afterwards, is to say what is extremely doubtful. In many people, perphaps with the majority of educated persons, the love of nature is nearly imperceptible at ten years old, but strong and operative at. thirty. In general we may say of these high instincts of early childhood, the base of the alleged systematic philosophy of Wordsworth, what Thucydides says of the early achievements of the Greek race : — " It is impossible to speak with certainty of what is so remote; but from all that we can really investigate, I should say that they were no very great things.'' ■gfV-tr^^^-^'^'^ KS8AT ON WORDSWORTH. 26 Finally the " scientific system of thought " in Wordsworth ^ves us at least such poetry as this, which the devout Words- worthian accepts :— *' O for the ooming of that glorioas time When, prizing knowledge as her aoblest wealth ^ And best protection, this Imperial Realm, While she exacts allegiance, shall admit An obligation, on her part, to teach Them who are bom to serve her and obey ; Binding herself by statute to secure, For all the children whom her soil maintains, The rudiments of letters, and inform The mind with moral and religions truth." ' Wordsworth calls Voltaire dull, and surely the production of these un-Yoltairian lines must have been imposed on him as a judgment ! One can hear them being quoted at a Social Science Congress ; ofte can call up the whole 3cene. A great room in one of our dismal provincial towns ; dusty air and jaded afternoon daylight ; benches full of men with bald heads and women in spectacles ; an orator lifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without to declaim these lines of Wordsworth ; and in the soul of any poor child of nature who may have wandered in thither, an unutterable sense of lamentation, and mourning, and woe ! " But turn we," as Wordsworth says, " from these bold, bad men," the haunters of Social Science Congresses. And let us be on our guard, too, against the exhibitors and extollers of a **^scientifio system of thought " in Wordsworth's poetry. The poetry will never be seen aright while they thus eL.hibit it. The cause of its greatness is simple, and may be told quite simply. Wordsworth's poetry is great because of the extra- ordinary power with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to UB in nature, the joy offered to us in the simple primary affsotioiui and duties ; and because ot the extraordinary power ii»lHi>Uil|ljlj|lrtir m^ 9smm 20 ESSAY ON WOKDSWOftTH. rt' i I m t-f- witli which, in case after case, he shows us this joy, and renders it so as to make us share it. The source of joy from which he thus di-aws is the truest and most unfailing source of joy accessible to man. It is also accessible universally. Wordsworth brings us word, tlierefore, according to his own strong and characteristic line, he brings us hia word " Of joy in widest commonalty spread. " Here is an immense advantage for a poet Wordsworth tells of what all seek, and tells of it at its truest and best source, and yet a source where all may go and draw for it. Nevertheless, we are not to suppose that everything is precious which Wordsworth, standing even at this perennial and beautiful source, may give us. Wordsv/orthians are apt to talk as if it must be. They will speak with the same reverence of T/ie Sailor^a Mother ^ for exan^)le, as of Lucy Gray. They do their master harm by such lack of discrimination. Lucy Gray is a beautiful success; The Sailor^a MotJier is a failure. To give aright what he wishes to give, to interpret and render successfully, is not always within Wordsworth.'^ own command. It is within no poet's command ; here is the part of the Muse, the inspiration, the God, the "not ourselves." In Word worth's case, the accident, for so it may almost be called, of inspiration, is of peculiar importance No poet, I)erhaps, is so evidently filled with a new and sacred .energy when the inspiration is upon him ; no poet, when it fails him, is so left " weak as is a breaking wave.." I remember hearin<' him say that "Goethe's poetry was not inevitable enough." The remark is striking and true ; no line in Goethe, as Goethd said himself, but its maker knew well how it came there. Wordsworth is right, Goethe's poetry is not inevitable; not inevitable enough. But Wordsworth's poetry, when he is at his besty is inevitable, as inevitable as Natuce herself. II fiSSAir ON MTORDSWORTB. 27 might seem that Nature not only gave him the matter for his |)oem, but wrote his poem for him. He has no style. He waa too conversant with Milton not to catch at times his master's manner, and he has fine Miltonic lines ; but he has no assured poetic style of hw own, like Milton. When he seeks to have a style he falls into ponderosity and pomposity. In the Excuirgion we have his style, as an artistic product of hii own ci-eation; and altliough Jeffrey completely failed to recognise Wordsworth's real greatness, he was yet not wrong in saying of the Excuo'sionf as a work of })oetic style : " This will never do." And yet magical as is that power, which Wordsworth has not) of assured and possessed poetic style, he has something which is an equivalent for it. Every one who has any sense for these things feels the subtle turn, the heightening, which is given to a poet's verse by hsB genius for ptyle. We can feel it in the " After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well " — of Shakespeare ; in the ' . " though iali'n on evil days, On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues " — of Milton. It is the incomparable charm of Milton's power of poetic style which gives such worth to Paradise Regained^ and makes % great poem of a work in which Milton's imagination does not soar high. Wordsworth has in constant possession, and at command, no style of this kind ; but he had too poetic a nature, and had read the great poets too well, not to catch, as I have already remarked, something of it occasionally. We find it not only in his Miltonic lines; we find it in such a ^brase aa this, whwe the manner is his own, not Milton'i «... "the fierce confederate stoim Of wnrrow barrieadoed evermore Witiiiii the walk of oitiea i " wm i^mm Iw iVt 28 BS8AY OS WORDSWORTH. II i; k =11 although even here, perhaps, the power of style, which is undeniable, is moi'e pro|:>erly that of eloquent prose than tho subtle heightening and change wrought by genuine poetic style. It is style, again, and the elevation given by style, which chiefly makes the effectiveness of Lcuxiameia. Still the right sort of verse to choose from Wordsworth, if we are to sense his true and most characteristic form of expression, iB a line like this from Michad : — « And never lifted np a single stone." There is nothing subtle in it, no heightening, nor stuay of poetic style, strictly so called, at all; yet it is expression of the highest and must truly expressive kind. Wordsworth owed much to Burns, and a style of perfect plainness, relying for effect solely on the weight and force of that which with entire fidelity it utters. Burns could show him. 9 ** The poor inhabitant below Was qnick to learn and wise to know. And keenly felt the friendly {^w And softer flame ; Bat thonghtless follies laid him low And atain'd his name." Every one will be conscious of a likeness here to Wordsworth ; and if Wordsworth did gi'eat things with this nobly plain manner, we must remember, what indeed he himself would always have been forward to acknowledge, that Bums used it before him. Still Wordsworth's use of it has something unique and nnmatchable. Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of hiis hand, and to write for him with her own bare, sheer, penetrating power. This arises from two causes; from the profound sincereness with which Wordsworth feels his sul^ec^ and also from the profoundly sincere and natural character of ESSAY ON WORDSWORTH. 29 his subject itself. He can aiid will treat such u subject with nothing but the most plain, ^rst-hand, almost austere natural- His expression may often be called bald, as, for instance, IIUSS. in the poem of ResohUion and Independence ; but it is bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness which is full of grandeur. Wherever we meet with the successful balance, in Words- worth, of profound truth of subject with profound truth oi execution, he is unique. His best poems are those which most perfectly exhibit this balance. I have a warm admiration for Loiodameia and for the great Ode; but if I am to tell the very truth, I find Lokodameia not wholly free from something artifical, and the great Ode not wholly fioo from something declamatory. If T had to pick out poems of a kind most {ierfectly to show Wordsworth's unique power, I should rather choose poems such as Michael, The Fountain, The Highland Reaper. And poems with the peculiar and unique beauty which distinguishes these, Wordsworth produced in considerable number ; besides very many other poems of which the worth, although not so rare as the worth of these, is still exceedingly high. On the whole, then, as I said %t the beginning, not only is Words* Torth eminent by reason of the goodness of hiei best work, but he is eminent also by reason of the great body of good work which he has left to us. 'With the ancients I will not com{)are him. In many respects the ancients are far above us, and yet there is something: that we demand which they can never give. Leaving the ancients, let us come to the poets and poetry of Christendom. Dante, Shakespeare, Moli^re, Milton, Groethe, are altogether larger and more splendid luminaries in the poetical heayen than Wordsworth. But I know not where else, among the modems, wo are to find his suj^eriors. To disengage the poems which show his power, and to pi-esent tbem to the English-speaking public and to the world, is the m^wnpHVwpHpvnpi m 30 B88AY ON WOKDSWORTH. iM:;. object of this yolumo. I by no means say that it contains all which in Wordsworth's poems ia interestiAig. Elxcept in thu oase of Mar(/areiy a stoi-y composed separately from the rest of the ExGurnion, and which belongs to a different part of England, I have not ventured on detaching portions of poems, or on giving any piece otherwise than as Wordsworth himself gave it But, under the conditions imposed by this reserve, the volume con- tains, I think, everything, or nearly everything, which may best serve him with the majority of lovers of poeU-y, nothing which may disserve him. I have spoken lightly of Wordsworthians : and if we are to got Wordsworth recognised by the public and by the world, we must recontiLiend bim not in the spirit of a clique, but in the spirit of disinterested lovers of poetry. But I am a Words- worthian myself. I can read with pleasure and edification Peter Bell, and the whole series of Hocleauistical Sonnets, and the address to Mr. Wilkinson's spade, and even the TharUcsgiviny Ode ; — everything of Wordsworth, I think, except Vaudracour and Julia. It is not for nothing that one has been brought up in the veneration of a man so truly worthy of homage ;. that one has seen him and heard him, lived in his neighbourhood and been familiar with his country. No Wordsworthian has a tenderer affection for this pure and sage master than I, or is less really offended by his defects. But Wordsworth is something more than the pure and sage master of a small band of devoted followers, ai>i i^ ought not to rest satistied until he is seen to be what he is. He is one of the very chief glories of English Poetry ; and by nothing is England so glorious as by her ])oetry. Let us lay aside every weight which hinders our getting him recognised as this, and let our one study be to biing to pass, as widely as possible and as truly as possibly his own word oon- ceming his poems: — "They will co-operate with the braiign tendencies in human nature and society, and will, in their degrc^) be efficacious in making men^wiser, better, and happier." wpp !ii"*|«p. iHv.mmm'".- '■• I ». I ^Pqp^^ , IJWIllHIIJIj|«pi^l !l_,J»J,lf!(J,ii,lii„l l!iij«||ij_.lll.. -TT^T-^™?^ POEMS OF BALLAD FORM " 'Tta all men's office to aptak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow." —Much Ado a:}out Kiothing. '""i" "™«", "H|'m""">'« "P U 1 . m^.iw-p^p»^^^wi»^B^sp|p|||p|j|i|ip|p|ip^||^ppp|^|p| i^PPW c ■ ■P*iKP"'""IF ^P ^IP^PPBIP lawiiif!' SELECTIONS. THE REYERIB OF POOR SUSAN. At the oomer of Wood Street when daylight appears, Hangs a Thrash that sings load, it has oung for three years : Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard In the siknoe of morning the song of the Bird. «ttiiK & IHb a note oC enohuitment ; what ails her t She A mountain asoending, a vision of trees ; Bright volames of vapour through Lothbury glide^ And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapaide. Green pastaree she views in the midst of the dale, Down which she so often has tripped with her pail ; And a single small Oottage, a nest like a dove's, The one only dwelling on earth that she lovea She looks, and her heart is in heaven : bat they ladej The mist and the river, the hill and the shade : The stream will not flow, and the hill wiU not rise, And the oolours have all passed away from het eyes. WE ARE SEYBN. >A si»F*p1«* diild, That lightly draws its breath. And feels its life in every limb. What should it know of death t 8 10 15 II (L" Jilil iu|i|i| ;9^>^^q^^iiv«f;i|l^ipm«pp!p>p^p^ ^^fK(H(!^"»!?«iPf*»"P"l}^^"^" 34 WORD8WO&TH. I met a little cottage girl : She was eight years old, she said ; Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head. She had a rustic, woodland air. And she was wildly clad : Her eyes were fair, and very fair —Her beauty made me glad. ** Sisters and brothers, little Maid, How many may you be f ** How many t Seven in all,*' she said, And wondering looked at me. 10 " And whore are they f I pray yon tell.** She answered, " Seven are we ; And two of us at Conway dwell. And two are gone to 3e&. ** Two of ns in the churchyard lia^ My sister and my brother ; And, in the churchyard cottage, I Dwell near them with my mother.'' " Tou say that two at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea, Yet ye are seven ! — I pray you tell, Sweet Maid, how this may ba*' S5 I! 1 Then did the little Maid reply, " SeT9n boys and girls are we; Two of us in the churchyard lie. Beneath the ohnrohyard tre^.** <0 iMiiii w^ wmmfimmmmm Mn^nKp^f^mpWP.W ■... V l.^iai^lliiVlfJipiMII I.WW>B^P(W1J11J »l"«IIWW««'W,'|Uilf,im,J(,l IMipn, pwiljl jji ijp.ii «. jump .j,.j1" ' ' •r—n^ WB ARC 8K?S1I. ^ «* You rtm about, my little Maid, Your limbs they are aliye ; ^ If two are in the churchyard laid, Then ye are only five." ft " Thdr gravee are green, they may be seen/' The little Maid replied, "Twelve atepe or more from my mother'a door, 49 And they are aide by side. ** My stockings there I often knit^ My kerchief there I hem ; And there upon the ground I sit— I sit and sing to them. '* And often after sunset, Sir, When it is light and fair, I take my little porringer. And eat my supper thei'e. <* The iir&^< that died was little Jane ; In bed she moaning lay. Till Qod released her of her pain ; And then she went away. ** So in the churchyard she was laid ; And, when the grass was dry, 05 Together round her grave we played, My brother John and L " And when the ground was white with snow, And I could run and slide, My brother John was forced to go, ^q And he lies by her aide." inpnppiPPifiiviiiP W! mmmm 36 :^**"'* WORDSWORTH. " How many are you, then," said I. " If thoy two are in Heaven 1 " The little Maiden did reply, ** O Master I we are seven.*' " But they ara dead ; those two are dead t Their spirits are in Heaven ! " Twas throwing words away : for still The little Maid would have her will. And said, " Nay, we are seven I ** «( LUCY GRAY, OR, SOU'OItu Orr I had heard of Lucy Gray : And, when I crossed the wild, I chanced to see at break of day The solitary Child. No mate, no comrade Lucy knew ; She dwelt on a wide moor, — ^The sweetest thing that ever grew Beside a human door 1 You yet may spy the fawn at piay The hare upon the green ; But the sweet face of Lucy Gray Will never more be seen. To-night will be a stormy night-~ You to the town must go ; And take a lantern, Child, to light Your mother through the snow.'* (»5 70 mm mmmmmmm/^m 'rT"*-5™'.- "•«»'' ^.^i"^! 'J 4 11 LUCf ORAT. << That, Father 1 will I gladly do : TRs scarcely afternoon — • The Mixi8tep«lock has just straok two. And yonder is the Moon." At this the Father raised his hook. And snapped a faggot-band ; He plied his work ; — and Luoy took The lantern in her hand. Not blither is the mountain roe : With many a wanton stroke Her feet disperse the powdery snow, That rises up like smoke. The mow came on before its time : She wandered up and down ; And many a hill did Luoy climb ; But neyer raaohed the town. The wretched parents all that night Went shoating far and wide ; But there was neither sound nor sight To serve them for a guide. At day-break on a hill they stood That overlooked the moor ; And thence thoy saw the bridge of wood, A forlong from their door. They wept— and, turning homeward, cried, ** In Heaven we all shall meet : " —When in the snow the mother spied The print of Lucy's feet 37 20 25 40 45 wmissmmmmmmmimmmm. liipppBqpPiPiiillii!^ 38 woauMnroBTB. Half braathleM from the steep hill's edge They tracked the footmarks small ; And thioagh the broken hawthom-hedg^ And by the long stone-wall ; And then an open field they croRsed : The marks were still the sarao ; They tracked them on, nor ever lost ; And to the Bridge they cama They followed from the snowy bank Those footmarkS; one by one, Into the middle of the plank ; And farther there were none ! — Tet some maintain that to this day She is a living child ; That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonwome wild. O'er K^ugh and smooth she trips along And never looks behind ; And sings a solitary song i That whistles in the wind. 50 65 60 65 jitiiMiHMiiiiiiiiliiiili 'IPPPUPPPPP^^ ■■•WT^fy.- 'WM NARRATIVE POEMS. "4 MfM may find Mm mho a mrmm filta, Ami tun dtl'gkt Mo a teurlfiM." Ijcwiit-fiwifiiiu, - m%:rfa^ff^^m^. \^ . , uM-ji-iyiiw^^^ti jpi , j^iJJUi -I ■•w.Jig-.nv.'H J.. wiiwju; m ,'its%fp^^!^'!ffj^i}^:. — "'~'"r~""^15.':»" ■r t '^'w^^^f^^mm" mmmnimmm ■■iilliil MICHAEL. li A PASTORAL POEM. It from ihe public way you turn your steps Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Qhyll, You will suppose that with an upright path Your feet must struggle ; in such bold asoent The pastoral mountaiua front you, face w> face. But, courage I for around that boLterous Brook The mountains have all opened out themselves, And made a hidden valley of their own. No habitation can be seen ; but they Who journey hither find themselves alone With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites That overhead are sailing in the sky. It is in truth an utter solitude ; Nor should I have made mention of this Dell But for one object which you might pass by, Might see and notice not. Beside the brook Appears a straggling heap of unhewn stonei! I And to that place a story appertains, Which, though it be ungamished with events. Is not unfit, I deem, for the fireside, Or for the summer shade. It was the first Of those domestic tales that spake to me Of Shepherds, dwellei-s in the valleys, men Whom I already loved ; — ^not verily I For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills [Where was their occupation and abode. And hence tiiis tale, while I was yet a Boy Careleia of books, yet having felt the power 1 15 20 25 ^w mum qnnR 42 WOBDBWORTH. Of Nature, by Jihe gentle agency Of natural objects led me on to' feel For paarions that were not my own, and think (At random and imperfectly indeed) On man, the heart of man, and human life. Therefore, although it be a history Homely and mde, I will relate the same For the delight of a few natural hearts ; And, with yet fonder feeling, for the sake Of yoathfiil Poets, who among these Hills Will be my second self when I am gone. Upon the Fore8t4dde in Grasmere Yale There dwelt a Shepherd, Michael was his name ; An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb. His bodily frame hac'i been from youth to age Of an unusual strength : his mind was keen. Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs. And in his Shepherd's calling he was prompt And watchful more than ordinary men. Hence had he learned the meaning of all winds. Of blasts of every tone ; and, oftentimes. When others heeded not, he heard the South Make subterraneous music, like the noise • Of Bagpipers, ou distant Highland hills. The shepherd, at such warning, of his flock Bethought him, and he to himself would say, " The winds are now devising work for me 1 " And, truly, at all times, the storm — ^that drives The traveller to a shelter — summoned him Up to the mountains : he had been alone Amid the heart of many thousand mists. That came to him and left him on the heights. So lived he till his eightieth year was past. 35 40 45 50 55 60 mCRAXL. 43 35 45 Anil gnmdj that num em, who should sappose Thftt the green YaHeySy and the Streams and Rooks, 65 Wen things indifferent to the Shepherd's thoughts. Fwld% where with cheerful spirite he had breathed The oammon air ; the hills, which he so oft Had dimbed with vigorous steps ; which had impressed , So many incidents upon his mind ''O Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear ; Which, like a book, preserved the memory Of the dumb animals, whom he had saved, Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts. The certainty of honourable gain, 75 Those fields, those hills — what could they Iea.s1 had laid Strong hold on his affections, were to him \A pleasurable feeling of blind love. The pleasure which there is in life itself. His days had not been passed in singleness. His Helpmate was a comely Matron, old — Though younger than himselt >ill twenty years. She was a woman of a stirring life. Whose heart was in her house : two wheels she had Of antique form, this large for spinning wool, I That small for flax; and if one wheel had rest. lit was because the other was at work. The pair had but one inmate in their house, An only Ohild, who had been bom to them When Michael, telling o'er his years, began To deem that he was old, — ^in Shepherd's phrase, With one foot in the grave. This only Son With two brave Sheep-dogs tried in many a storm, The one of an inestimable worth. Made all their household. I may truly say, 95 That they were as a proverb in the vale mrmm mmnfimm^rf ■PPHPiipap 44 WORDSWORTH. For endless industry. When day was gone, Anti fi-om their occupations out of doora The Son and Father were come home, even then Their labour did not cease ; unless when all 100. Turned to their cleanly supper-board, and there, Each with a mess of pottag*; and skimmed milk, Sat round their basket piled with oaten cakes, And their plain home-made cheese. Yet when their meal Was onded, Luke (for so the Son was named) 105 And his old father both betook themselves To such convenient work as m\ght employ Their hands by the fireside ; perhaps to card Wool for the Housewife's spindle, or repair Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe, 110 Or other implement of house or field. Down from the ceiling by the chimney's edge, That in our ancient uncouth country style Did with a huge projection overblow Large space beneath, as duly as the light 1 1 5 Of day grew dim the Housewife hung a Lamp ; « An aged utensil, which had performed Service beyond all othere of it« kind. Early at evening did it burn and late, Surviving comrade of uncounted Hours, 120 Which, going by from year to year, had found, And left the couple neither gay perhaps Box cheerful, yet with objects and with hopes. Living a life of pj^ger industry. And now, when LuKB had reached his eighteenth year 125 There by the light of this old lamp they sat, Father and Son, while late into the night The Housewife plied her own peculiar work. Making the cottage through the silent hours MICHABL. 45 Muimur as with the sound of Hummer flies. 130 This Light was famous in its neighbourhood, And was a public symbol of the life That thrifty Pair had lived. For, as it caanceil, Their Cottage on a plot of rising ground Stood single, with large prospect, North and South, 135 High into Easedale, up to Dunmail-Raise, And westward to the village near the Lake ; And from this constant light, so regular And so far seen, the House itself, by all Who dwelt within the limits of the vale„ 140 Both old and young, was named Thk Bvawiwq j3tar. Thus living on through such a length of years, The Shepherd, if he loved himself, must needs Have loved his Helpmate ; but to Michael's heart This Son of his old age was yet more dear — 145 ^ Less from instinctive tenderness, the same 1 Blind spirit, which is in the blood of all — I Than that a child more than all other gifts, I Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts, I And stirrings of inquietude, when they 150 By tendency of nature needs must fail. Exceeding was the love he bare to him. His Heart, and his Heai't's joy 1 For oftentimes Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms, Had done him female service, not alone 1 55 For pastime and delight, as is the use To acts of tend^ynfiHS j and he had ix>cked rHis cradle with a woman's gentle hand. And, in a later time, ere yet the Boy 100 Had put on boy's attire, did Michael love, Albeit of a stem unbending miud, 46 WOBMWORTB. To hftTB the Toang-one in hJa sight, when he Had work by his own door, or when he sat With sheep before him on his Shepherd's stool, 165 Beneath that large old Oak, which near their door Stood,- and, from its enormoo^ breadth of shade Chosen for the shearer^s covert from the sun, Thence in onr rustic dialect was called The Clipping Tbbb,* a name which yet it bean. 170 There, while they two were sitt^*^ in the shade, With others round them, earnest all and blithe^ Would Michael exercise his heart with looks Of fond correction and reproof bestowed Upon the Child, if he disturbed the sheep 175 By catching at their legs, or with his shouts Scared them, while they lay still beneath the shears. And when by Heaven's good grace the Boy grew np A healthy lad, and carried in cheek Two steady roses that were fi\ » j«)ars old, 180 Then Michael from a winter coppice out With his own hand a sapling, which he hooped With iron, making it <*hroughout in all Due requisites a perfect shepherd's Staff^ And gave it to the Boy ; wherewith equipt ] 85 He as a watchman oftentimes was placed At gate or gap, to stem or tnm the flock ; And, to his offic~ prematurely called, , There stood the Urchin, as you will divine^ Something between a hinderance and a help; 190 And for ihls cause not always, I bSievST Receiving from his Fathm* hire of praise ; Though nought was left undone which staff, or voioe^ Or looks, or threatening gestures, could perform. *CU|qpiiiK ii ^M ""^"^ ^BmaA in the Morib of Fngliail lor dNwrfav. wmmmmmmif^ MicniAa. 47 But noon as Luke, full ten yean old, oould itund 1 95 Againat the moantain blaata ; and to the heighta, Not fearing toil, nor length of wearj wayi, He with hia Father dailj went, and they Were aa oompanions, whj should X relate That objects which the Shepherd loved before 1 200 Were dearer now! that from the Boy there came Feelings and emanations — things which were light to the sun and music to the wind ; And that the Old Man's heart seemed bom again t Thus in his Father's sight the boy grew vp : 206 And now, when he had reached hb eighteenth year, He was his comfort and his daily hope. Whilk in this sort the simple Household lived Fro day to day, to Michael's ear there came Distranfnl tidings. Long before the time 210 Of which I speak, the Shepherd had been bound In sare^ for his Brother's Son, a man Of an industrious life, and ample means,—* But unforseen misfortunes suddenly Had preat upon him, — and old Michael now Was summoned to disohsi*ge the forfeiture, A grierous penalty, but little less Than half his substance. This unlooked-for claim. At the first hearing, for a moment took More hope out of his life than he supposed ^20 That any old man ever could have lost As soon as he had gathered ao much strength That he oould look his trouble in the face. It seemed that his sole refuge was to lell A portion of his patrim . 1 I u m^m^^immmm mmmnm 68 W0HD8W0UTH. Sir Walter wii)ed hia face, and cried, " Till now Such siglit was never neen by living ejes : Three leaps have borne him from this lofty brow, Down to the vary fountain where he lies. ** I'll build a Pleasure-house upon this spot, And a small Arbour, made for rural joy ; 'Twill be the traveller's shed, the pilgiim's cot, A place of love for damsels that are coy. u A cunning artist will I have to frame A basin for that Fountain in the dell I And they who do make mention of the same, From this day forth, shall call it Haet-lbap Well. " And, gallant Stag I to make thy praises known, Another monument shall here be raised ; Three several Pillars, each a rongh-hewn stone, And planted where thy hoofs the turf have grazed. " And, in the summer-time when days are long, I will come hither with my Paramour ; And w ^ the dancers and the minstrel's song We will make merry in that pleasant Bower. " Till the foundations of the mountains fidl My Mansion with its Arbour shall endure ; — The joy of them who till the fields of Swale, And them who dwell among the woods of Ure I" Then home he went, and left the Hart, stone-dead, With breathless nostrils stretched above the spring. — Soon did the Knight perform what he had suid, And fiur and wide the fame thereof did ring. 65 60 65 70 76 80 UART-LRAP WILL. 59 0 •5 Ere thrioe the Moon into her 'port had iteered, A Oup of stone received the living Well ; Three Pillan of rude stone Sir Walter reared, And built a House of Pleasure in the dell. And near the Fountain, flowers of stature tall With trailing plants and trees' were intertwined,- Which soon composed a little sylvan Uall, A leafj shelter from the sun and wind. And thither, when the summer days were long, Sir Walter led his wondering Paramour ; And with the dancers and the minstrel's song Made merriment within that pleasant Bower. The Knight, Sir Walter, died in course of time, And his bones lie in his paternal vule. — But there is matter for a second rhyme^ And I to this would add another tale. 85 90 95 PART SECOND. Thb moving acddent is nob my ti-ade : To fi'eeze the blood I have no ready arts : ' 'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade, To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts. As I from Hawes to Richmond did re[)air, It chanced that I saw standing in a dell Three Aspens at three cornei-s of a square ; And one, not four yards distant, near a Well What this imported I could ill divine : And, pulling now the rein my horse to stop^ I saw three Pillars standing in a line. The last ttoue-Pillar on a dark hill-top. 100 1 105 no ' f 60 m_f mfi-^im'if.w WORDSWORTH. 'Wr'^iiW^f'^IWf'l'^WW^ ■PWIBM^ The treoa were gray, with neither arras nor head ; Half-wasted tbe square Mound of tawny groen ; So that you ju&t might say, as then I said, " Here in old time the hand of man hath been.'' I looked upon the hill both far and near, Moi-e doleful place did nevei* eye survey ; It seemed as if the spring-time came aot here, And Nature here were willing to decay. I stood in various thoughts and fancies lost, When one, who was in shepherd's garb attired, Came up the hollow : — Him did I accost. And what this place might be I then inquired. The Shepherd stopped, and that same story told Which in my former rhyme I have reheai-sed. " A jolly place,'* said he, " in times of old 1 !Qut something ails it now ; the spot is curst. *' You see these lifeless stumps of aspen wood — Some say that they are beeches, others elms — These were the Bower ; and here a Mansion stood. The finest palace of a hundred realms 1 " The Arbour does its own condition tell ; You see the Stones, the Fountain, and the Stream ; But as to the great Lodge ! you might as well Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream. " There's neither dog nor heifer, horse nor sheep, Will wet his lip within that Cup of stone ; And oftentimes, when all are fast asleep, This water doth send forth a dolorous groan. lift 120 125 130 135 !:>-v-«»«i-. •'*\«*w«s«»*4»***-.' Uf) 120 HART-LSAP WBLL '' Some mj that here a murder has been done, And Llood cries cut for biood : but, for my part, IVa gueased, when Vr& been sitting in the sun, T7iat it was all for that unhappy Hart. I4u III. i„„W4iiiuj^B^|!5^(5W5iip^ V mi^i^fmm^^mm 62 WORDSWORTH. " The Being, th&fc is in the clouds and air, That is in the green leaves among the groves, Maintains a deep and reverential c«re For the unoffending creatures whom he loves. 17C '• The Pleasure-house is dust : — behind, before. This is no common waste, no common gloom ; But Nature, in due course of time, once more Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom. " She leaves these objects to a slow decay, 175 That what we are, and have been, may be known ; But, at the coming of the milder day, These monuments shall all be overgrown. " One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide. Taught both by what she shows, and what conceals, I8'> Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." FIDELITY. A BARfciNO sound the Shepherd hears^ A cry as of a dog or fox ; He halts — and searches with his eyes Among the scattered rocks ; And now at distance can discern A stirring in a brake of fern ; And instantly a dog is seen, Glancing through that covert grew. FIDBUTT. The Dog is not of mountain breed ; Its motions, too, are wild and shy ; With something, as the Shepherd thinks, Unusual in its .cry : Nor is there any one in sight All round, in hollow or on height ; Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear ; What is the Creature doing here t It was a cove, a huge recess. That keeps, till June, December's snow ; A lofty precipice in front, A silent tai.-n* below ! Far in the bosom of Helvellyn, Bemoie from public road or dwelling Pathway, or cultivated land ; From trace of human foot or hand. 63 10 15 20 26 There sometimes doth a leaping fish Sena through the tarn a lonely cheer; The crags repeat the raven's croak. In symphony austere ; Thither the rainbow comes — the cloud — And mists that spread the flying shroud ; And sunbeams ; and the sounding blast, That, if it could, would hurry past ; But that enormous barrier binds it fast 30 Not free from boding thoughts, a while The Shepherd stood : then makes his way Towards the Dog, o'er rooks and stones, As quickly as he may ; 35 'Tarn to»«MallMM« or Lftk*, nHMtljr h^ up in (Im mountaim. 64 WORDSWORTH. Nor fur had gone before he found A human skeleton on the gix)iind ; 40 The appalled discoverer with a siglj Looks round, to learn the history. From those abrupt and perilous rocks The Man had fallen, that place of fear 1 At length upon the Shepherd's mind 45 It breaks, and all is clear : He instantly recalled the name, And who he was, and whence he came ; Remembered, too, the very day On which the traveller passed this way. 50 But hear a wonder, fo whose sake This lamentable tale I tell I A lasting monument of words This wonder merits well. The Dog, which still was hovering nigh, 55 Repeating the same timid cry, This Dog, had been through three months' space A dweller in that savage place. Yes, proof was plain that, since the day When this ill-fated traveller died, 60 The Dog had watched about the spot, Or by his Master's side : How nourished here through such long time He knows, who gave that love sublime ; And gave that strength of feeling, great 65 Above all human estimate. r 1 THK LSBOH-OATHERBR. 65 THE LEECH-GATHERER; OR, RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. Thbrb was a roaring in the wind all nigtit; The rain came heavily and fell in flood^; But now the sun is rising calm and bright ;"< The birds are singing in the distant woods ; Over his own sweet voice the Stock- dove broods ; The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters ; And all the air is ullsd with pleasant noise of waters. All things that love the sun are out of doors ; The sky rejoices in the morning's birth ; The grass is bright with rain-drops ; — on the moors The Hare is running races in her mirth ; And with her feet she from the plashy earth Raises a mist ; that, glittering in the sun, Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run. I was a traveller then upon the moor ; I saw the Hare that raced about with joy ; I heard the woods and distant waters roar ; Or heard them not, as happy as a boy : The pleasant season did my heart em[)loy -.' My old remembrances went from me wholly ; And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy 1 10 15 20 But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might 25 Of joy in minds that can no further go, As high as we have mounted in delight In our dejection do we sink us low, To me that morning did it happen so; And feai-s and fancies thick upon me came ; 30 Dim sadness — and blind thoughts, I know not, nor could name. "^ppn ■WPW^H^ w^lpi"pli«p^pli«lilp i«ipl«ip 66 WORDSWORTH. I heard the Skj-lark warbling in the sky ; And I bethought me of the playful Hare : Even such a happy child of earth am I ; Even as these blissful creatures do I fare ; Far from the world I walk, and from all care ; But there may come another day to me — Solitude, jmin of heart, distress, and poverty. My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought. As if life's business were a summer mood : As if all needful things would come unsought To genial faith, still rich in genial good : But how can He expect that others should Build for him, sow for him, and at his calj Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all 1 I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy, The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride ; Of Him who walked in glory and in joy ^ Following his plow, along the mountain-side : By our own spirits are we deified ; We Poets in our youth begin in gladness ; But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness. Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, - A leading from above, a something given, Yet it befel, tliat, in this lonely place, When I with theia untoward thoughts had striven, Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven I saw H Man before me unawares : The oldest man he seenied that ever wore grey haiiu As a huge Stone is sometimes seen to lie Couched on the bald top of an eminence ; Wondor to all who do the same espy. 35 40 45 60 65 60 THB LBEOH GATHBKER. 67 By what means it could thither oorne, and whence ; So that it seems a thing endued with sense : Like a Sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself ; Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead, Nor all asleep — ^in his extreme old age : His body was bent double, feet and head Coming together in life's pilgrimage; * As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage Of sickness felt by him in times long past, A mora than human weight upon his frame had cast. Himself he propped, his body, limbs, and face. Upon a long grey ^taff of shaven wood : And, still as I drew near with gentle pace, Upon the margin of that moorish flood Motionless as a Cloud the Old-man stood ; That heareth not the loud winds when they call : And moveth all together, if it move at all. At length, himself unsettling, he the Pond Stirred with his Staff, and fixedly did look Upon the muddy waters, which he conned. As if he had been reading in a book : And now a stranger's privilege I took : And| drawing to his side, to him did say, "This morning gives us promise of a glorious day." A gentle answer did the Old-man make, In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew : And him with further words I thus bespake, ** What occupation do you there pursue 1 This is a lonesome place for one like you.'* He answered, while a flash of mild surprise Broke from the sable orbs of his yet vivid eyes. 65 70 75 1 80 85 90 pi^jii I . I (J ,1 1 n»pi.«pii .«! iiiiHij{P,n tiuimsg^mmifmmm^ifm ^mi^mmm mim 66 WOBD8WOIITU. His words came feobly, from a feeble chest, But each in solemn order followed each, With something of a lofty utterance drest^— Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach Of ordinary men : a stately speech ; Such as grave livers do iu Scotland use, Religious men, '-^ho give to God and Man their dues. He told, that to these waters he had come To gather Leeches, being old and poor : Employment hazardous and wearisome ! And he had many hardships to endure ; From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor ; Housing, with Gk)d's good help, by choice or chance ; And in this way he gained an honest maintoii^iince. The Old-man still stood talking by my side; But noi^ his voice to me was like a stream Scarce heard ; nor word from word could I divide ; And the whole Body of the Man did seem Like one whom I had met with in a drc^am ; Or like a man from some far region sent, f£o give me human sti-ength, by apt admonishment. My former thoughts returned : the fear that kiils ; And hope that is unwilling to be fed ; Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills ; And mighty Poets in their misery dead. — Perplexed, and longing to be comforted. My question eagerly did I renew, " How is it that you live, and what is it you do ? " He with a smile did then his words repeat ; And said, that, gathering Leeches, far and wide Ue travelled; stirring thus about his feet 1 05 100 105 110 115 120 125 THB LBEOH OATHERBU. 69 The waters of the Pools whera they abida " Once I could meet with them on every side ; But they have dwindled long by slow decay ; Tet still I persevere, and find them where I may." While he was talking thus, the lonely place, 130 The Old-maa's shape, and speech, all troubled lue : In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace About the weary mooi*s continually. Wandering about alone and silently. While I these thoughts within myself pursued, 135 He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed. And soon with this he other matter blended, Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind, But stately in the main ; and when he ended, I could have laughed myself to scorn to find HO In that decrepit Man so firm a mind. " God," said I, " be my help and stay secure ; I'll think of the Leech-gai • ^ •>,. u i V J ^ III ense. In spots like these it is we prize Our Memory, feel that she hath eyes : Then, why should I be loth to stir 1 I feel this place was made for her ; To give new pleasure like the past, Continued long as life shall last. Nor am I loth, though pleased at heart. Sweet Highland Girl I from Thee to part ; For I, methinks, ♦'ill I grow old, As fair before mc all behold, As I do now, the Cabin small. The Lake, the Bay, the Waterfall ; And Thee, the Spirit of them all I 55 $0 65 70 t5 STEPPING WESTWARD. While my Fellow-traveller and I were walkiogr by the side of Looh Katrine, one fine evening after sunaet, in our road to a Hut where in the course of our Tour we had been hospitably entertained some weelts before, we met, in one of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed Women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, " What, you are stepping westward?" " What, you are stepping westukird t '*- —-'T would be a wildi'*h H«t:v i , « Ym.** \ I- THE SOLITARY REAPER. mimm TUE SOLITARY REAPER. If we, who thus together roam 111 a sti-ange land, and far from home, Were in this place the guests of Chance : Yet who would stop, or fear to advance, Though home or shelter ho had none. With such a Sky to lead him on 1 The dewy ground was dark and cold ; Behind, all gloomy to behold ; And stepping westward seemed to be A kind of heavenly destiny : I liked the greeting ; 'twas a sound Of something without place or bound; And seemed to give me spiritual right To travel through that region bright. The voice was soft, and she who spake Was walking by her native Lake : The salutation had to me The very sound of courtesy : Its power was felt ; and while my eye Was fixed upon the glowing sky, The echo of the voice enwrought A human sweetness with the thought Of travelling through the world that lay Before me in my eudiea* way. 79 10 15 20 25 ^ THE SOLITARY REAFKR. Behold her, single in the field. Yon solitary Higldand Lass ! Reaping and singing by herself ; Stop here, or gently pass ! 6 u 1^1^ ipi m^mm^m «S|,if 80 WORDSWORTH. Alone she cuts, and binds the grain. And sings a melancholy strain ; O listen ! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound. No Nightingale did ever chant So sweetly to reposing bands Of Travellera in some shady hannt, Among Arabian sands : A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides. Will no one tell me what she sings ? Perhaps the plaintisre numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off" things. And battles long ago : Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day ? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again ! What'er the theme, the Maiden sang As if her song could have no ending : I saw her singing at her work. And o'er the sickle bending ; — I listened till I had my fill, And when I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no inoro. 10 15 20 2.') 30 ipiiiLPimip I ^■^PW^iiWPWI Ifimi U^lllllU|l«P>f|IHqilMIPpP'^iPPPPI ipiPHii gMj" At TBI GRAVE OF BURNS. 81 AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS, 1803. SEVEK YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH. I SHiVKH, Spirit fierco and bold, At thought of what I now beliold : As vapoure breathed from dungeons cold Strike pleasure dead, So sadness con' i from out the mo'ild Where Burns is laid. And have I then thy bones so near. And thou forbidden to appear 1 As if it were thyself that's here I shrink with pain ; And both my wishes and my fear Alike are vain. Off weight — nor press on weight ! — away Dark thoughts ! — they came, but not to stay ; With chastened feelings would I pay The tribute due To him, and aught that hides his clay From mortal view. 10 16 20 Fresh as the flower, whose modept worth He sang, his genius " glinted " forth, Rose like a star that touching earth, For so it seems, Dotb glorify its humble birth With matchless l)fiamH. 25 ^HUMWW'VI .. . I.I ,L lW«N^r^pfl|Hip|i^Rl^i|inip|i^|a|ii«l«|Ri||||||ip ^ ^2 WORDSWORTtt. The piercing eye, fche thoughtful biow, The atrnggling heart, where be thoy now ?- Full soon the Aspirant of the plough, • The prompt, the brave, Slept, with the ol>scure«t, in the low And silent grave. Well might I mourn that He was gone, Whose light I hail'd when first it shone, When, breaking forth as nature's own. It showed my youth How Verse may build a princely throne On bumble truth. 35 Alas I where'er the cun^nt tends, Regret puiT ds and with it blends, Huge Criffe/s hoary top ascends By Skiddaw seen, — Neigh boui-s we were, and loving friends We might have been : True friends though di ersely inclined; But heart with heart, and mind with mind, Where the main fibre s are entwined, Thro-igh Nature's skill, May even by contraries be joined More closely still. The tear will start, and let it flow ; Thou "poor Inhabita t below," At this dread moment— -even so — Might we together Have sate and talked wlicre gowans blow, Or on wild heather. 40 45 50 65 I'lliiinjal AT TUB JRAVK OF liUHNS. i n What treasures woi:Ul have then been placed Within my reach ; of knowledge graced By fancy what a rich repaat ! But why go on I— Oh I spare to sweep, thou mournful hiast, His grave grass-grown. There, too, a Son, \M joy and pride, (N( H oe weeks past the Stripling died,) Lies gathered to his Fatlier's side, Soul-mt ing si^jht I Yet one to which is not dttnied Som< Bad deligu£. For hs is safe, a quiet bed Hath early found among the dead. Harboured where none can be misled, Wronged, or distrest ; And surely here it may be said That such are blest. And oh for Thee, by pitying grace Checked oft-times in a devious race, May He, who halloweth the place Where Man is laid, Reoeive thy Spirit in the embrace For which it prayed I Sighing I turned away ; but ere Night fell, I heard, or seemed to hear, Music that sorrow comes not neai', A ritual hyma, Ghaunted in love that casts out fear By Semphim. 60 65 70 75 t- 80 85 ^. 0^ 4^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) 1.0 I.I ■ 50 "^^ 1 y«2.o 2.2 11:25 II u 1.6 p 7 >^^ > :^ K^V /I 'C ^Sciences Corporation 23 WCST MAIN STRKT WiBSTER, N.Y. t4SSC (716)872-4503 \ iV ^ 4» ^J^ 't^ '^ > 84 WOBDSWORTH. THOUGHTS SUOa^STED THE DAY POLLOWINO, ON THE BANK. OF NITH, NEAR TiSE poet's RESIDENCE. Too frail to keep the lofty vow That must have followed when his brow Was wreathed — " The Vision " tells us how — With holly spray, He faultercjd, drifted to and fro, And pas&ed away. Well might raoh ^.houghts, dear Sister, throng 10 Our minds when, lingering all too long, Over the grave of Bums we hung In social grief ^ — Indulged as if it were a wrong To seek relief. But, leaving each unquiet theme Where gentlest judgments may misdeem, And prompt to welcome every gleam Of good and fair. Let us beside this limpid Stream 20 Breathe hopeM air. Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight : Think rather of those moments bright When to the consciousness of right His coi?rse was true, 25 When wihdom prospered in his sight And virtue grew. '^^9'''''''1!,ii/*''Wl«^l,l,«B5PWpiflflpWBip^«MP|P« mimKfm tmrnmim' THOUGHTS. Yes, freely let our hearts expand, Freely as in youth's season bland, When side by side, his Book in hand, We wont to stray, Oar pleasure varying at oommand Of each sweet Lay. How ofb inspired must he have trode These pathways, yon far-stretchiug roarl ! There lurks his home ; in that Abode, With mirth elate, Or in his nobly-pensive mood, The Rustic sate. Proud thoughts that Image overawes, Before it humbly let ns pause. And as^ of Nature, from what cause, And by what rules She trained her Buiiis to win applause That shames the Schools. Through busiest street and loneliest glen Aie felt the flashes of his pen : He rules mid winter snows, and when Bees fill thoir hives i Deep in the general heart of men His power survives. What need of fields in some far clime Where Heroes, Sagos, Bards sublime, And all that fetched the flowing rhyme From genuine springs, Shall dwell together till old Time Folds up his wings I 55 mmm ^^^iKmmimmmiimiimmiiKfmfmil^ d6 WOftbSWOEttt. Sweet Meroy ! to the gates of Heaven This Minstrel lead, his sins forgiven ; The rueful oonfliot, the heart riven With vain endeavour^ And memory of Earth's bitter leaven EfEaoed for ever. But why to Him oonfine the prayer, When kindred thoughts and yearnings bear On the frail heart the purest share With all thaw live «— The best of what we do and are, Just Qod, foigive ! TO THE OUOKOO. 0 BUTHB New-oomer 1 I have heaid, 1 hear thee and rejoice. O Ouokoo I shall I day my heart is weary ; Had I now the wings of a Faery, Up to thee would I fly. 10 ■■■■■« 10 5 )0 5 ^ To hear the lark begin hia flight, And, singing, startle the dull night, From his watch'tomr in the akies. Till the dappled dawn doth Hae." —L' Allegro. , ■• ' I wmw^-m^^w^^^ "^ TO A 8KT-LARK. Thero's madneBS about thee, and joy divine In that song of thine ; Lift me, guide me high and high To thy banqneting-plaoe in the sky. •1 16 Joyous as morning, Then art laughing and sooraing ; Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest^ And, though little troubled with sloth. Drunken Lark 1 thou would'st be loth To be such a traveller as I. Happy, happy Liver, With a soul as strong as a mountain River Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, Joy and jollity be with us both 1 Alas ! my journey, niggi 1 lud uneven. Through prickly moors or dustv ways must wind But hearing thee, cr others of thy kind, As fiill of gladness and as free of heaven, I, with my fate contented, will plod on. And hope for higher raptures, when Life's day is done. 20 S5 80 TO A SKYLABK. EJrHMBiAL Minstrel ! Pilgrim of the sky { Dost thou des|Hse the earth where cares abound 1 Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground 1 Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Tho^e quivering winyi composed, that music still 1 7 92 WOBDSWORTH. To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mot^nt, daring Warbler I that love-prompted strain, (Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond) Thrills not the leis the bosom of the plain : Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege 1 to sing All independent of the leafy spring. Leave to the Nightingale her shady wood ; A privacy of glorious light is thine ; Whenoe thou dost pour upon the world a iBood Of harmony, with instinct more divine ; Type of the wise who soar, but never roam ; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home I 10 15 POEMS AKIN TO THE ANTIQUE AMD ODES. "Then (last ttralnj Of Duty, ekoMH laws, oontroUIng oholct, Action and Jon I— An Orphio aong IndtotI, A aong d olnn of high and paaalonate thought* T0 thtir own mualo chantadl" '-C3ltridg»» ?, -'.«.^, IJPP '^pppp^r«fppipp^pi^»i?ii»piiippii^^iq^^pi5i«^^ f/ ap^ ^miiff^mimm^mmmw^^99i^i^^^mmm^ l,#lj.i.W Ifllil IWP^WIPIP?'*^ (W mm^"^^ ODE TO DUTY. Jam non ooniilio bonus, sed mora e6 perdaotns, ut non tantam reotft fawn pomitn sed nM raoti facere non possiin.' Stbrk D; .ughter of the Voice of Gkxi i O Duty 1 if that name thou love Who art a light to guidOy a rod To check the errii; g, and reprove ; I Thou, who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe ; From vain temptations dost set free ; And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity I There BXf> who ask not if thine eye ^^^Kbk: lU Be or^ them ; who, in love and truth. Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth : Glad HtMirts 1 without reproach or blot ; Who do thy work, and kuow it not : -^^B 15 Long may the kindly impulse last I But Thou, if they should totter, teaoh them to stand fast ! Serene will be our days Mid bright. And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring lights ^^^^^Hb^^^K 20 And joy its own security. And they a blissful course may hold Bven ROW, who, not unwisely b(4d, live in the spirit of this creed ; Yet seek thy firm luppcnrty according to their need. 25 .'J,'} J ^^pup* mm* f^mmwmm mpm mmmm^m>'fi^W'l9^''''ff'^^ ■PMiiP^RPHPipi" 96 WO&DSWOBTB. I, losing freedom, and untried ; No sport of every random gnat^ Yet being tc myself a guide, Too blindly have reposed my trust; And oft, when in my heart was heard Thy timely mandate, I deferred The task, in smoother walks to stray ; But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. Through no disturbanoe of my soul, Or strong oompunotion in me wrought^ I supplinate for thy control ; But in the quietness of thought : Me this unchartered freedom tires ; I feel the weight of chanoenlflsires : My hopes no more must change their name, I kng for a repose that ever is the same. 30 40 45 Stem Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant graoe ; Ncr know we any thtjiig so fair As is the smile upon thy feuw : Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And firagranoe in thy footing treads ; Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong ; And the most ancientHeavens, through Thee, arc f«'<98hand strong. Ti Tl Tl It Tl To humbler functions, awful Power I I call thee : I myself commend Unto thy guidance from this hour ; Oh, let my weakness have an end i Give into me^ made lowly wiae, The pirit of selfHutorifice ; ThB confidence of reason give ; And in th« light of truth thy bondman ki me live I 60 l^» Tl N. Tc A mm^^mm I ■PiiiiPviliiPPPPPPiPipiiiiiii ODK 09 INTIMATIONS OV I11M0BTALIT7. ODE ON INTIMAllONS OF IMMORTALITY FROli BSC0LLB0TI0N8 OF KAltLT OHILDHOO!). Tekue was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight. To me did seem Apparelled in celestial lights The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore ;— Turn whereeoe'er I may, By night or day. The things which I have seen I now can see no mora ^^^V The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose ; The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the hea^ns are bare ; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair ; The sunshine is a glorious birth ; But yet I know, where'er I go. That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. ^ HI. « Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young Lambs bound Aa to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief : A timdy utterance gavs that thought r^ief, - And I egsin am strong : H 10 20 25 mmsgjM |p-^««>.Vi|H^ks forward, persevering to the last, Prom well to better, daily self-mirpast : Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth For ever, and to noble deeds give birth, Or he mast go to dust without his fame, 80 And leave a dead unprofitable name, Finds oomfort in himself and in his cause ; And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws His breath in confidence of Hf*aven's applause : This is the happy Warrior ; this is he 90 Whom every man in arms should wish to be. '. REFLECTIVE AND ELEGIAC POEMS. fat**." —UtaU. J , -'■SBi^Vi-*«#S. B^ wmmmm^mmmm 4ifi">"illW|i!IP«i!|; mmmmamm m LINES, wxvosed a few miles above tintern abbey, on reyisitino the banks of the iftb during a tour. July 13, 1798. Five years have past ; five summers, with the length, 5 Of five long winters 1 and again I hear These watem, rolling from their mountain-springs With a sweet inland murmer.* — Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty olifEs, That on a wil<) secluded scene impress 10 Thoughts of more deep seclusion ; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose Here, under this dark ^camore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, 15 Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves Among the woods and copses, nor disturb The wild green landscape. Once again I see These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines - 20 Of sportive wood run wild : these padtoml farms, Green to the very door ; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees ! With some uncertain notice, as might seem Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 25 Or of soma Hermit's cave, where by his fire The Hermit sits alone. These beauteous Forms, Through a lonq^ absence, have not been to me •n* ihwr to MlaflMlMl fcgr tiM tidM a 100 UMiM ssi^a *^ ^ , lin; :,iH.^jf, ,ji i^ii^!g^f^f!m^m!P!^fw'w^mmiimfW'^'^i9itii^mfmrmmim HM^iPlipPiMfPpilliP 110 WORDSWORTH. As is a landscape to a blind man's eye : But oft, in lonoly rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them. In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and fa^^^^npr f.hA Wrh ; And passing even into my purer mind, With tranquil restoration : — feelings too Of unremembered pleasure : such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence 3n that best portion of a good muu s life, lis little, nameless, unremembered acts 3f kindness and of lo^'e. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift. Of aspect more sublime ; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weaiy weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened : — that sei'ene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on, — Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we ar Nor perchance. If I were not thus taught, should I the more Suffer my genial spirits to decay : For thou art with me, here, upon the banks Of t i fair river ; thou, my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My fonner pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh I yet a little while May I bahold in thee what I was once. My dear, dear Sister ! and this prayer I make. 100 105 y 110 116 120 125 *Tliii Una hM m dam veMmbUuioe to m »«*HniM« Hm of Tooof, tho pmMlon o( tvhlofa I do nol NOoUoak. ttOMl 9X' p^.«IIIMI^ll^lJl^i f^a^ iT''«»'^""WBPP»^I>if!^pi^Pgi*^"PPip"PPSP|» r lliiPiPI"P«iillH LtKS. Elnowing that Natare never did betray Tho heart that loved her ; 'tis her privil^e, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy : for she can so inform The mind that is withiu us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Bash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greeting where no kindness is, nor all The di'eary intercourse of daily life. Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; And let the misty mountikin winds be free To blow against thee : and in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies ; oh ! then, If solitude^ or lear, or pain, or grief, « Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me. And these my exhortations I Nor, perohanoe ' If I should be where I no more can hear Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams Of past existence, wilt thou then forget That on the banks of this delightful stream We stood together i and that I, so long A worshipper of Nature, hither came Unwearied in that service : rather say WiUi warmer love, oh I with far deeper zeal Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, wmmmm^ 113 135 ;j 140 145 150 * 1 f J 1 160 m PI#IIPPM,1.,II Jl.HP«tll> «piiipiiPpippPiV" •ff;-""i-vmmm.„i,,.,ipW';^-'if.- iLi.iwp||i.i«>i^ii^^p|^wi||^^Bmp npupipiii 116 WORDSWOBTa '* If there be one who need bemoan His kindred laid in earth, The household hearts that were his own. It 18 the man of mirth. *• My days, my Friend, are almost gone. My life has been approved. And many love me ; but by none Am I enough beloved." "Now both himself and me he wrongs, The man who thus complains 1 I live and sing my id^'e songs Upon these happy plains, "And, Matthew, for thy children dead rilbeasontotheel" At this he grasped my hand, and said, " Alas I that cannot be." We rose up from the fountain-side ; And down the smootibi descent Of the green sheep- track did we glide ; And through the wood we w^it ; And, ere we came to Leonard's-rock, He sang those witty rbymes About the crazy old churdi-clock, And the bewildered chimes. BP»«B'"«^HP 06 65 70 ^^^^^^mmmmmmmmmmiK^Km ^v ^ YW^ l",i""TJ, !Wj.w».f"'P«f nm;J -'. >jii!Pi"iiip^»^pp"-»i^w^ ^q^^lippBimp^ c4 H CO S m » 1^ ^TC"p»'«,i!ij!i«ii!»i.«iiiipi.iyiHui»ii.,iBlini,m„i,ii., j.iipii I n^trmmsfmi'm^^gm'm 118 WOBDSlrOETB. / / /^ Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, Such Picture would I at that time have made : And seen the soul of truth in every part, 30 A stedfast peace that might not be betrayed. So once it would have been, — ^'tis so no more ; I have submitted to a new control : A power is gone, which nothing can restore ; A deep distress hath humanised my Soul 35 Not for a moment could I now behold A smiling sea, and be what I have been : The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old ; This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. Then, Beaumont^ Friend ! who would have been the Friend, 40 If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but commend ; This sea in anger, and that dismal shore. 0 *tis a passionate Work — ^yet wise and well, Well chosen is the spirit that is here ; 45 That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell, That rueful sky, thid pageantry of fear 1 And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, 1 love to see the look with which it braves^ Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time, 50 The lightning, the fierce wind, and tmmpling waves. Farewell, farewell tho heart that lives alone, Housed, in a dream, at distance from tile Kind 1 Such happiness; whenever it be known, Is to be pitied ; for 'tia surely blind. 55 mm ^ ^ numoa msvoLunov. But wdoome fortitiide^ and pattont dwer, And frequent sights of what v to be bonw 1 Such sightB, or wotfle, as are heibife ue h^re.-* Not without hope we suffer aii.i ire mourn. 119 .if!'! j^A FBBNOH KBVOLTJTION. AS IV AFPBARBD TO BMTHITSIASTS AT ITS OOMMBNOICMBNT. Oh ! pleasant exercise of hope and joy I For mightj were the auxiliars, which then stood Upon our side, we who were strong in love I Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be jroung was very heaven I — Oh ! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and itatute^ took at onoe The attraction of a oountry in Romanes I When Reason seeiL m1 the most to assert her rights When most intent on making of herself A prime enchantress — to assist the work. Which then was going forward in nor name ! Not &voured spots alone, but the whole earth, The beauty wore of promise — ^that which sets (As at some moment might not be unfelt Among the bowers of paradise itself) The budding rose above the rose foil blown. What temper at the prospect did not wake To happiness unthought of 1 The inert Were roused, and lively natures mpt away I Thoy who had fnd their childhood upon dreams. The playfeUows of ftotcy, who had made All powers of mriftomt, 8ub* final day : Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade Of that which once was great, is passed away. VI.-THOUOHT OF A Briton on the Subjugation ^r Switzerland. Two Voices are there ; } . i26 WOJUMWORTH. Then deare, O cleave to that which still is left ; For, highHBOuIed Maid, what sorrow would it be That Mountain Floods should thunder as before, And Ocean bellow from his rooky shore, And neither awful Yoioe be heard by thee I 10 XVn.— To Thomas Olarkson, on the Final Passino of thi Bill for thb Abolition of thb Slave Trade, March 1807. Clarkson 1 it was an obstinate hill to climb : How toilsome — nay, how dire it was, by Thee 5 Is known, — ^by none, perhaps, so feelingly ; But Thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime. Didst first lead forth this pilgrimage sublime. Hast heard the constant Voice its charge repeat, Which, out of thy young heart's oracular seat, 10 First roused thee. - O true yoke-fellow of Time, Duty's intrepid liegeman, see, the palm Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn I The bloody Writing is for ever torn, And Thou henceforth shall have a good man's calm, 15 ^ A great man's happiness ; thy zeal shall find Repose at length, firm Friend of human kind 1 XIX. Scorn not the Sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honouni ; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart ; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; Camoens soothed with it an exile's grief; •omim. 137 The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned His visionary brow : a glow-worm lamp, 10 It cheered mild Spenser, called fix>m Faery-land To struggle through dark ways ; and, when a damp Pell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing becaYne a trumpet, whence he blew Soul-animating strains— alas, too few 1 15 XX. NuKS fret not at their convent's narrow room, And Hermits are contented with their cells, And Students with their pensive citadels : Maids at tfie Wheel, the Weaver at his loom, Sit blithe and happy ; Bees that soar for bloom, High as the highest Peak of Furness Pells, Will murmur by the liour in foxglove bells: In truth, the prison, unto which we doom Ourselves, no prison is : and hence to me. In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground : Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty. Should find brief solace thero, as I have found. 10 XXTIL — Personal Talk. I AM not One who much or oft delight To season my fireside with personal talk, Of friends, who live within an easy walk, Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight : And, for my chance^usquaintance, ladies bright, (.-^ 5 i^ I IM WORMWOBtA. Sons, mothers, maideiui withering on the stalk, Thew all wear out of me, like forms with chalk Painted on rich men's floors for one feast-nights Better than suoh discourse dotli siloaoe long, Long, barren silence, square with my desii*e j To sit without emotion, hope, or aim. In the loved presence of my cottage-fire, And listen to the flapping of the flat..j, Or kettle whispering its faint undersong. 15 20 $i n XXIV. — Continued. Wings have we, — and as far as we can go We may find pleasure : wilderness and wood, Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood Which with the lofty sanctifies the Dreams, books, are each a world; au.. ^ooka, we know. Are a substantial world, both pure and good.: Round th«se, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow. There find I personal themes, a plenteous stow^ Matter wherein right voluble I am, To which I listen with a ready ear ; Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear, The gentle Lady married to the Moor; And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb. XXV. — CONCLUDBD. Nor can I not believe but that hereby Great gains are mine ; for thtun I liv^ reiQot^ From evil-speaking ; rancour, q«ver sought^ Oomes tp m« not ; malignant tratb, or Ue. 10 15 5 I loviini. 1S9 H'jnoe hATe I genial Maaom, henoe have I Smooth passions, smooth diaooarse, and joyona thought: And thus from day to day my little boat Rocks in its harbour, lodging peaceably. Blessings be with them— and eternal praise, 10 Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares— The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays ! Oh ! might my name be numbered among theirs, Then £5ladly would I end my mortal days. 15 XXVI.— To Sleep. A FLOOK of sheep that leisurely pass by, One afte jne ; the sound of rain, and bees Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky, By turns have all been thought of, yet I lie Sleepless ; and soon the small birds* melodies Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees * And the firat Cuckoo's melancholy cry. Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay, And could not win thee, Sleep 1 by any stealth : So do not let me wear to-night away : Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth t Come, blessed barrier between day and day, Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health I 10 15 XXIX. CoMPOsrao UPON Westminster Bridge, SkpT. 3, 1803. Eabth has not anything to show more fair ; Pull would bo be of fipul who could pass by ■"IP^»"fPB| ■■PHI 190 WORDSWORTH. A sight so toQohing in im majesty : This City now doth like a garment wear The beaoty of the morning ; silent» bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open nnto the fields, and to the sky ; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill ; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep ! The river glideth at his owii sweet 'will : Dear God 1 the very houses seem asleep ^ And all that mighty heart is lying still ! 10 16 »ERWENTWATER AND SKIDDAW. 'ifcS S/'^ "Sw ifta,Ji» fltti«i"« COMMENTARY. " You misht read all the bookt In the British Muaeum (If^m mtuld lloe lottg §nough) and remain an utterly 'Illiterate ' uneducated person ; but If yon read ten pages of a good booh, letter by letter,— that Is to say, with real aocurany,— you are forevermore In some measure an fduoaied person. The entire differ- ence between education and non-education fas regards the merely Intellectual part of It) consists In this accuracy. " --Utiskim. RP!',"' Jiim''y^i^mmmii'mmmmfmmm t- < . . - ^ Tk— oliapttn, u alight tiibut* to tht iaate and teholanUp of om wko lo not bUm/ed by a love of Eurlpldoa and Virgil to the merits of Shakespeare and Tenns/son, aro qffectlonatelg dedicated to ADAM 0ARRUTHER8, Es^ t Is CHAPTER I. MEMOIR OF WORDS¥rORTH. ' j Mark Antony.— Hla tift was genUt; and the elementt 80 mixed In him, that Mature might stand up, And eag to a// the mrU, "Thie rnu a manl" —Shtdieepeare'a Jullae (kuear. ! i jj S X u O H 55 U o Q OS O (X] u CHAPTER L MKMOIK. ] Every great English poet has had a great lesson peculiarly his own to offer to his readers ; however varied and voluminous his works, some dominant and central idea has given unity to them all and made them, as one may say, a single song of many notes. Milton's trumpet- voice proclaims the power and sub- limity of the spirit world as conceived by the Puritan imagina- tion ; Pope asserts the superiority of reason as man's governing faculty ; Byr^n stands for passion and liberty, even to excess ; Shelley calls us to a revolt against conventionality and super- stition ; the inscrutable and god-like Shakespeare, while scorning any single truth, has taught us above all things to know the world rather than to judge it. In fiction, also, this singleness of purpose has marked the efforts of our greatest novelists. Scott revived chivalry : he exerted his wonderful gift of historic imagination to show us *'the storied past"; Dickens taught us the beauty and power of a warm and loving heart, the sweetness of cheerfulness and sentiment; Thackeray satirized all who make pretences, and exhibited the folly and meann^is of sham and deceit ; George Eliot was imbued with the importance of hump/a life, and piade us feel that it is as important in one class of society a^ in another. Many gifted writers have failed to be great because they have fidled to grasp 'any great central idea to give forth as a new and impoi*tant truth for humanity. Many writers, on the other hand, have gi*a8ped truths of the highest vtilue, and grasped them with wonderful power and ongLoality, and yet, because of the want of artistic gifts, have failed to give ua beautiful litMtawy works. Carlyle with his Wesson of hiurd woik and naoere work 187 wm 138 WORMWORTH. might have been a Rublime poet had he not lacked beauty of ezpremion ; Emerson's great truth that the broadest view of a subject is the most truthful and enlightening, might have made him a great novelist had he possessed as much knowladon^ of story-telling as some of our weakest novelists. The originality and importance to humanity of an author's great dominant idea, together with his gift of conveying that idea in a powerful form, go a long way toward making his rank and influence. Oray's idea that the villagers sleeping peace- fully in their narrow cells under the twilight shadows of the churchyard at Stoke were worth writing beautifvilly about, has been considered so great an idea that Qray is a great poet though he wrote only a handful of verses. Bums found that Gray's idea had nort been exhausted ; he used the same great truth with so much love and warmth and life that he may be said to have made it his own. Perhaps this idea can never be exhausted until sorrow and poverty shall cease. But, while a little work on such a tntth has made such names as Qray and Bums, all the art of a Longfellow has failed to male an equal fame where no such powerful mission was felt, it is only when we find the great teacher and the great artist in the one man that we see a Spenser or a Tennyion. It has never been claimed for Wordsworth that his art was equal to that of poets like Shelley and Swinburne ; when he first claimed attention for his verses h^ was sneered at as no gifted artist, however scanty his thought, is ever sneei'ed at ; and yet he is reckoned among our first poets by a great majority of capable critics. Some rank him among the first three, some among the first five ; a few still sneer at his claims. Of his rank we shall speak again, but it must be certain that the great mission of thi» poet has appealed profoundly to the MIMOIB. 139 V thoughtful cUuases; otherwise, with his small pretensions to skill as a vei-sifier he oould never hold the plaoe he does. If one were asked what subjects literature may deal with, one might conclude roughly that humami/y and naiur^ and the ttngeew world would cover the whole ground. Shakespeare has gone a long way toward covering all this ground, but he has certainly made human nature his own particular subject. ^^ Milton has told us of the invisible powers, and his name is in a sense identified with that division of the literary field. Now, it would seem tJiat until ^. '^ordsworth came the other part of the field had never been appropriated, and he made it his c.^^. Milton tells us to look within us and above for light and guid- ance; our path is that of Christicm^ we must keep our eye upon the end of the narrow way ; Shakespeare tells us to look around us, to know our fellow-man, his actions and his motives ; to learn how to live rather than how to die ; our path is among men, our duty to our Creator is our duty to those among whom He has placed us. But Wordsworth tells us to look for ^ the image of our Maker in the grass, the rocks, the starlit water; the daisy, the skylark, the innocent hart, are our examples because they draw their joy and peace from the source of it, and our wisdom is to see that the simple living of thase is our guide to present and eternal happiness ; our path is not among men so much as among the hills, the valleys, the meadows, along the streams, under the open sky of heaven. Milton was a man of books, Shakespeare was a man of the world, Wordsworth was neither. Milton was a man of strong ecclesiastical and scholastic opinions, Shakespeare has ex- pressed no opinions, Wordsworth's opinions are the opinions of Nature herself. When we say that Wordswortli is one of the three greatest poets, we mean that he has appropriated one of the three great divisions of the whole field of literary effort with so much power and suoc^s that no other poet has ever been thought of ^ FTi miam ■«« Ud irORDgWOBTR. aa his rival. The substance of ihe views tkit people of a scholastic and ecclesiastical turn of mind hold oonoeming the unseen world may be found in the Paradise Lost and the Paradifs Regained. All that men think about each other (and mufoh more) may be found in Shakespeare's Plays. All our tenderness for flowers, birds and natural objects generally is voiced in Wordsworth, he tells us our ideal relation to nature, we are to love nature and to learn from her. Nature teaches us peace, happiness and duty. The stars in their orbits are youug and strong through obeying the law of their nature ; if we obey the law of our nature we shall be young and strong always. If the stars could break the law ruin would result. Duty, then, is our guide, but though our guide not our task- master ; we are to regard the law of duty as the law of perfect liberty ; liberty is the light to do right — ^to obey duty ; the right to do wrong is mere license. Liberty brings peace and happiness, even a bright wholesome joy, but noc pleasure. Pleasure is something to be feared, it is unknown to the flower, and the bird, and the star. Joy is the highest state of happiness that brings no reaction, no misery or depi'ession ; pleasure is to be shunned, it biings depression, remorse, decay. Itisill be seen that the poet is not so much the poet who glorifies nature as the poet who interprets man's relation to nature. No more striking lesson could be had than to contrast Shelley's verses about the skylark with Wordsworth's. Shelley's song is indeed " harmonious madness," tremendous, wild and passionate ; Wordsworth's song is far more passionate than is usual with him, indeed, it may be said to reach the highast pitch of lyrical enthusiasm he permits himself, yet it ends thus : *" I, on the earth will go ploddmg oo. By myself, oheerfuUy, till the day is done." He does not wish to indulge in the wildness of joy though he MSMOIB. 141 envies the strong heart of this fftvourite of nature, a creature to whom the intoxication of joy i' not an excess. We have purposely said nothing of Wordsworth's life up to this point It is not uncommon in memoirs to see such expres- sions as these: **an uneventful career," " a quiet and uninter- esting life." Frankly then our poet never was a poacher, he never tramped through Europe supporting himself by playing a flute, he did not lead a band of disorderly Suliotes in the war of Greek Independence, nor was he drowned from a yacht at the age of thirty. No such amusing, exciting, or tragic tales are told of himu Nor had he any remarkabl e eccentricities to endear him to the reader ; he did not quarrel with his wife, nor keep a pet bear, nor eat like a savage, nor drink tea ex cessively, nor ruin himself with opium ; he did not commit suicide, nor die of a broken heart, nor at an early age. On the other hand he was a quiet, kindly, well-balanced man, of excellent habits and character ; he lived in peace with all men, was a good neighbour and citizen, and through eighty long years kept plodding on cheerfully till his day was done. Not an eventful life in the common sense of the term ; not an interesting life if one compare it with the life of a fiction-hero and on the same grounds of judgment. His own great dom- inant truth of book and life was that all morbid excitem^it, all passion, whether of pleasure or grief, is unmanly, undutiiul and evil ; he would have condemned no great tragic htory if true and natural, but the morbid desire for all undue excite- ment was in his eyes the great evil of the world. He is the antithesis of Byron, he is the antithesis of Baudot and de Maupassant, he is the antith^is of cynicism and pessimism and of everything that destroys hope, and prevents efifort, and paralyzes faith and love and health. No hlaa^ heart will be simulated into an hour's attention by his pen ; no eye that cannot, with CSarlyle see the fifth act of a tragedy in the death oi every peasant, and weep over the field-mouse and the m ■If m Ul WOBDBWOBTU. uprooted daisy with Burns, will see what this poet has to nhow. But let no rash oritio oonolude that what he has no eyes to see has no visible existence. There are thousands of " Wordsworthians " and tens of thousands who feel that life is better worth living, and plodding less irksome, and simplicity . more charming, because Wordsworth lived uneventfully antl plodded cheerfully, and despised luxury. Surely the best that any poet can do is to make millions of people regard their daily ooramonplace existence as being beautiful and worthy of " them and even ideal : and surely the worst any writer can do is to make the people despise their poor surroundings, feel wretched, envious, discontented, hopeless. Had Wordsworth been of the latter class he might more consistently have died a tragic early death after a tragic or melodramatic life ; being of the former class preeminent, he has left us only a simple record which the greatest of his readers might wisely envy. At Oookermouth, in April, when the buds break, in the year 1770, Wordsworth was bom. His father, an attorney, was law-agent to the ^rl of Lonsdale. Both parent were of good birth and educauon, both were wise, refined and capable. The mother died leaving her boy only eight years of age, very young to be motherless, but not too young to have got a strong impress of her love and wisdom. He received his earliest lessons at a dame-school in Penrith; at nine he was sent to Hawkeshead Qrammar School in Lancashire ; at seventeen, to St. John's College, Cambridge. He was graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1791, about a century ago. The year before, he had travelled in Europe with a College friend, Jones, and after his graduation he went to France, where he remained about a year- and-«rhalf^ studying the French language, which he mastered thoroughly, and the political situation of those stirring times. At first he was an ardent Bepublioan, but disgusted with the II' u^ iv'i '»"n^^«n*iii^pi|HppiipfPll|Mlip mmmmmmmmmmmmmi Pi a en en oi M8MOIR. US excesses of *ihe BeTolutionists, he returned to England and rapidly lecaiae a staimob^ not to say reactionary Oonservatiye. Though poor, ho had rela,tiye8 who made him an allowance on which he could live. His friends wished him to study for holy ordera, but he felt a strong desire to live by writing, and soon published a small volume of verse. A frieud, Raisley Calvert,, for whom ha feifc a profound attaohme '. ieJ after a lingering illness, in which Wordsworth had Uow-. much de- votion to hina. Cklvort having great faith in tu^ ; >ung poet'd genius left him j£^00, to enable him to follow literature without depending upon his relatives. In 1757, Wordsworth met Coleridge, and the two ambitious young poets formed a strong friendship. They agreed to write a book of poems together, Coleridge to write about the super- natural, and Wordsworth to lend the charm of poetry to commonplace objects. This book appeared in *98 and contained " The Ancient Mariner," a ballad so powerful in preaeuting the strong reality of the Invisible world that it carries more con- viction of the existeixce of unseen ^.nd spiritual forces than even Milton's sublime works. The book (Lyrical Ballads, Vol. I.) was a flat failure however, and Wordsworth's part of io was much reviled by the critics. After its publication the poets and Wordsworth's sister went to Germany to study. This visit to the continent had a, striking influence upon Coleridge but Wordsworth returned without any strong marks of German culture. On his return to Engldud in 1799, he settled down to live in seclusion si poet-philosopher. He always lived near the Eixgiish lakeu, though in three or four different sj,H>ts. In 1813, he went to Bydal Mount, the residence most famously associated with his name. In 1802, the Wordsworth's got X8,500 in settlement of a lawsuit against the Earl of lx>risdalle, amd the poet's share was ■■* mmmm 144 woBDSwomrH. sufBcient to warrant him in marrying ; so at the age of thirty* two he was married to his own oouain, Mary Hutchinson, with whom as a child he had gone to school and played at Penrith. Their union was most happy. In his verses he often refers to her kindness and wisdom ; there were five children, of whom the father was yery fond, some of his sweetest verses desoribe his daughters. In 1813 he got a Government appointment as Distributor of Stamps for Cumberland and Westmoreland ; this brought him about £500 a year, and the work was done by a deputy. In 1827 Sir George Beaumont, friend and patron of Wordsworth, died, leaving him XI 00 a year as a legacy. Wordsworth worked steadily away with little enooui'a^- ment except from a circle of cultivated friends such as Cole- ridge, Southey, De Quincey, and Arnold of Rugby, until about 1839, when he got more recognition. In 1840, he was pen- sioned by Sir Robert Feel, (the minister who never read poetry) receiving £300 yearly. In 1843 he was offered the honour of Poet Laureate upon the death of Southey ; he declined the post because of his great age, but, being assured that no duties would be required of him, that the Queen heartily approved of his appointment, and that she could select for the place '' no one whose claims for respect and honour on account of eminence as a poet " could be placed in competition with his, he withdraw his objections and honoured the English laurel by wealing it for his few remaining yeara When, a few years later, the present venerable Laureate inbeiited that decoration, he wrote with beautifhl sincerity of his wreath aa — , ** Tl^is lanrel greener from the brows Of him that utter'd nothing baae." In 1850, once more in Ai)ril, the stai* which had risen ill 1770 was again upon the horiason. He had never known ill MKMOIR. U5 f, ness, but tlti^ -witness of foursoore left him unable to throw off a cold, hence, on the 23rd of the month of buds, that beautiful and perfect life returned unto God who gave ic In a moment he returned from hia journey far inland to that — "^Immortal sea Which brought us hither." He lies enshrined in a great temple. ' Its roof is fretted with the clouds and stars, its carpet is the daisied grass, its pillars are the ancient hills, its music the "murmuring Rotha*' and the restless wind. There, in the Grasmere churchyard he lies, surrounded by his dear dalesmen, his wildflowers, and his birds. What solemn pomp of stately edifice could equal the eternal temple of nature. "What noble company of the dead could be so sweet to his ashes aa that rustic fellowship. Were ever life, diath and burial-place more beautifully harmonious with a great man's teaching than these] What dramatic touch, what strange or eccentric story but would mar the steady consistent life-record of this great, earnest, serious, humourless man. A good citizen, good husband and father, good friend, good neighbour, good poet — ^it is this that makes his life dull, uneventful, undramatic ; it is this, that makes him worthy of the highest praise — *' This was a man.* M "The dew la on the Lotus/ RIae great Suit I And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave. Om Mani Padme Hum, the Sunrise comes I The dew-drop slips into the shining seat" ■Pill CHAPTER II. THE DEFINITION OF VoETRY. "In dnama we are true poeta ; we oreaU the peraone of the drama; we gloe them appropriate figures, faoea, costume; they are perfect In their organs, attitude, manners : moreouer, they spaah after their own characters, not ours ;— they speak to us, and we listen with surprise to what they say. Indeed I doubt If the best poet has yet written any fiue-aat play that can compare in thoroughness of inoention with the unwritten play In flue acts, eomposed by the dullest snorer on the floor of the watch-house." —Emerson ^^ ,,,,„.,,,p,.„,..„,, , 1^1 vm'miiiiMM>''V!wmmmmmmK^^mmmmKmmi^^ CHAPTER II. THK DEnNITION OF POBTBT. When students begin to study Botanj or Hydrostatics they naturally inquire for the definition of Botany or Hydrostatics so that they may grasp the meaning and aims of the new- subject and its province of investigation; but every student begins the study of pqietry with » more or less definite under- standing of what a poem is, hence the formal defiinition of poem and poetry are usually passed over without direct notice. If, however, a more scientific mind should ask What is poetry ? or What ore the eharacteriatio marks of a poem f it is probable that the question would meet with so great a variety of replies as to leave the questioner in a state of perplexity far deeper than he had at first e^iperienoed. It is certain that many could say it is useless to seek for a rigid definition of a poem ; nature tells her favoured few when they find the true metal and they do not care to divulge the secret nor to publish any tests by which less favoured readers may attempt the assay. But it is fairly certain that careful and even scientific scrutiny, with assaying tests and formulsB, do ndl lessen but increase our knowledge of poetry and our delight in it ; it is also well known that many of our greatest poets, notably Wordsworth, have written learned essays upon the scientific aspects of their art and upon these grounds we may conclude that the hasy and indolent view w^hich ui^es us not to attempt oloce observations for the sake of definition is merely a labour-saving caprice of those v~ho would be critics without canons of criticism, and oracles without the authority of unquestioned knowledge. If then we err in attemptii^ a eoientific definiticm of poetry we err under the {woteotion <^ mt 160 WORDSWOBTH. such writers as Aristotle, Horace, Pope, Wordsworth, Goethe, Schiller, Ruskin, Poe, Swinburne, Matthew Arnold and a legion of others of almost equal fame. All well-constructed definitions begin by placing the species to be definea in the genus or family to which it belongs. We have no difficulty lu ascertaining that a poem is a work of art. Poems are one species of this genus, while pictures, musical pieces, pieces of statuary and of architecture are other species of the same large group. We know that a fine art is a method of appealing to the soul through the senses, as painting through the eye, and music through the ear ; our inquiry then leads us to seek for the special mark or test which difierentiates the art of [)oetry from the other fine-ai-ts. We see at once that in the means used there is a decided difference between any two arts. Music uses combinations of sounds to arouse oui* thoughts and feelings ; painting uses colours, lights and shadows ; sculpture uses marble and differs from painting in using the white solid while painting uses the coloured surface. Poetry is quite different from these, at first sight so different that we doubt whether we should call it an art ; it uses words for its material and at fii-st they seem to appeal to none of the senses. Of course we see printed words and they appeal, as bite of printing, to the eye, but unless thcj printing is very artistic they are not works of art merely considered as they appeal to the eye. Take for example the lines : — ^ *« Fair laughs the mom, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, * Youth on the prow, and pleasure at tlie helm." TOie mere fact that these irregular black characters on the white paper appeal to the eye does not make them a work of art J but, if these characters, on accouno of their conventional power as symbols of ideas, rouse in the mmcTs eye a picture of TUK DEFINITION OF POBTRt. 161 :i the gilded vessel against the azure sea, of gay maiiners and reckless captain, the lines become as truly a work of art as if the same picture were raised by colours skilfully spread on canvas. After all it is not the eye ^which sees but the mind, and though the pictures of words undoubtedly require more activity of the sensuous imagination than the pictures of paint, they are as truly (and probably in highly imaginative minds as vividly) visible, as the most powerful painting. How power- fully is tbis claim of poetry to be ranked among the arts, s*»fc I rth by the actors when they represent the words of the poet uu the stage; what single other art can then vie with the art of words in powerful and comprehensive mastery of the human faculties; now every art is tributary, the hero is a stui ue, a painting, the scene is a triumph of architecture, the grand rhythm of the metre, if it be a masterpiece by our greatest poet, is more thrilling and moving than the tones of the sweetest and most, powerful organ. It would seem then that poetry is that means -of appealing to the soul of man which uses words as its medium of com- munication ; but no sooner do we reach this conclf.ijion than we are confronted by the unquestionable fact that our natures may be dee{)ly stirred by prose and that the definition makes nothing of a well-known distinction which diffei-entiates pi-ose and poetry. Moreover w'e have used an expi-ession " appealing to the soul of man" which is so vague and uncertain as to invalidate the definition from a scientific point of view. Neglecting the second objection for the moment let us look at the first. It cannot be doubted that prose is capable of stirring our emotions deeply; think of the passage in, the "apology of Socrates" ha translated by Jowett, where tlie great ancient is described as speaking of the trials and sorrows of life ; think of Burke's defen*^ of his pension where he speaks of his personal misfortunes ; or of the noble passage in which he pays a chivalrous tribute to Marie Antoinette ; read agaiu wmmmmm ■m 9! mm wmmmmmm IP 152 WOBOBWOBTH. I ', f { -i". r r if ■: the ending of the second preface of Sesame and TAUm or tbe passage on "failure" in The Mystery of Life, read the puniah- ment of Squeers in Nicholas Nicklehy, or the quan-el between Adam Bede and Donnithorne, the concluding lines of Southey's Life of Nelson or Irving's sketch of TJie Pride of the Village ; above all perhaps, veaA the parts of Carlyle's writings which treat of death and sorrow and then say whether or not prose is a means of appealing to the soul of man. What then is that mark which enables us to distinguish poetry from preset In the high and intellectual sense there is none. But though proHe at its very height may bi said to be essentially one with poetry, there is a feelii.g, common to all people, that when an author's thoughts and feelings reach so lofty and elevating » pitch as to stir the feelings and thoughts of all other men . whom they may be communicated, they should be expres^iod in music; hence the most <^levated pro- ductions of the mind have generally been expressed musically and when even the highest thoughts and emotions are expressed without this beautiful cadence men call the expression poetry only with a grudging feeling and usually they express a certain disapprobation by calling it merely prose. But, nevertheless they hold in high honour the writings of men who, lacking the gift of song, have done their best lo express their noble thoughts adequately without it, and many have wished to call the most powerful prose by the name which is usually reserved for musical language. Now the eai of the reading public is not so cultivated as it might be, hence they iiave not called all musical writing of the beet thoughts, poetry. Unless there is a muRic they can easily detect, a very regular cadence or falling of accents or stress, they do not call the writing musical; hence they mean by poetry, that means of apj mling to the soul of mim which uses words arranged in a regularly musical, o^- metrical way, as its 'means of communication. Some think YHK DEFINITION OW POITRT. 163 more of the sound than of the appeal to the soul of aum, but t hey are not of the best class perhapa But what is meant by *' appealing to the Bv)ul"t Even the most lotimed have various views as to the meaning of the word soul." Probably however the majority of thoughtful people une it in the sense <>f eri)etual endeavour to express the npirit of the thing, to pass the brute body, and search the life and leaHon which caused it to exist." Again he says, " the poet discovers that whait men value aa substances have a higher value as symbols, that nature is the immense shadow of man." So ingenious, so important and so largely true are these pi-egnant sentences that it is profitable to pause and illustrate them. When, Tennyson aa,y% in Ulysses : — " The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks, The long day wanes." he describes a merely natural appearance; but few readers would fail to catch the echo of a deeper meaning ; the des- cription has a high value as a picture of real tangible objects, but "a higher value" as a symbol of the closing of this our mortal life. Sometimes the poet ex})lains his symbolism as when Words- worth says of the skylark that it is a " Type of the wise who soar, but nover roam ; True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home." In jT/w Cloud Shelley gives no direct intimation of symbolism but study reveals a profound exam[>le of it in this wonderful poem. This piece of nature is no less than a symbol of life and all its vicissitudes, the fleeting moods and passions of the human heart. But Emerson's symbolism has a veiy broad and deep mean- ing. Common Mnse is accepting the world about us at its T » ■n 150 trORDSWORTIt. . ! t ■1 .1 apparent value and acting with a due regard for the importance of this material world; poetry is that uncommon sense which sees through the material envelope to the intelligent soul which made and animates it ; but poetry do^ not reject the common sense view; the greatest poets Shakespeare, Homer, Bums, had the strongest common sense side by side with the strongest ideality — the mere absent-minded idealist is as pitiable as the most stolid Philistine, though not so gross. Bi;^t what are we to think of those definitions which insist upon beauty as the sum and end and height of poetry 1 Has poetry truly nothing to do with conscience and truth 1 Every man has a capacity for being pleased by beautiful things, objects that please him he calls beautiful but whether the beauty of an object is always something different from its utility or goodness it is difficult to say. Few definitions of poetry have been more frequently quoted with approval thar Foe's formula, " the rhythmical creation of beauty.*' Similar to this is the dictum of Theodore Watts, " absolute poetry is the concrete and artistic expression of the human mind in emotionikl and rhythmical language," These twc critics are prominent exponents of a very large school ; Swinburne, Rossetti, Keabi and all poets whose chief appeal is to the sensuous imagination hold this belief firmly and some of them have asserted it strenuously. It is important to see clearly that there are two principal views of the question and it becomes necessary eventually to choose between them, though it never becomes necessary to declare the poets of either school to be distasteful or lacking in genius. This first class of critics have their fixed and certain tests of true or absolute poetry : (a) It must be musical. (b) It must gratify the love of beauty, (e) It must stir the emotions. (d) It must be ooncrete in method. "^ THB DEFINITION OP POITRT. 167 of These are their requirements, but of the " beautt/ " the " mttsic " ard the " emotional power " taste is the sole arbiter ; unless incidentally poetry has no concern with duty or truth. All who declare that the aesthetic quality of poetry is its mark and brand hold these views more or less clearly. Good examples of work that satisfies these canons may be seen in Kossetti's " The Blessed Damozel" Keats' "Eve of St. Agnes'* and a great deal of Hugo's lyrical verse. It seems incredible that English critics shoftld ever have come to think and say that poetry should not be moral and didactic, a * these critics have declared ; ib seems far more in- credible that so un-English a dogma should have become popular with a nation ** Who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake, the faith and manners hold Which Milton held." Indeed it would be quite entirely incredible were it not echoed to-day on every side so em[)hatically and so assiduovisly that cne is apt to be ridiculed for rebelling against it and venturing to asaert, however feebly, that whatever may be true of Italifin art, or of French art, or of Japanese art, English art alwa^TS was at its best and seems likely to be at its best most markedly and characteristically, and essentially, emphatically didactic and pointedly moral in tone and spirit : and by thit. is meant not that duty and truth have merely accidental relations to the beautiful and pleasing quality but that they are and constitute the pleasure of our greatest masterpieces according to the judgment of ou»* greatest and wisest men in all ages ; that with us truth and du'j are so mingled, blended and unified with our conceptions of the highest beauty, that it is hardly a perversion of terms to use any one of the three indiscriminately to denote the highest attitude of the greatest poetry. It is true that Ouida has written cleverly to satirize the narrowness of the '■. 11 15d WORDSWORTii. English art, that Pee reviled the notion that poetry could have a well-defined didactic motiYo, that even Coleridge has warned us that ethical teaching should not narrow our love of beauty wherever we find it : it is no secret that the French literary critics sneer at our lack of freedom, as they are pleased to call our wholesome decency, and that the amorous and military Italian is puzzled by our hopeless dullness. But while these taunts are fiequent no English reader should doubt that our poetry both hgls been and is didactic and moral, nor should he say that it should be merely aesthetic, while considering that in so doing he would necessarily repudiate Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Tennyson who have shown always by examples, and often by precept, that they think poetry at its best must do more than please and that the great poet must do more than charm, and charming in doing more. Who then need be ashamed, who at least of English speech and mind, to say boldly to all comers that, whatever may be true of European poetry or of poetry of the Swinburne and Oscar Wilde type, English poetry is and ought to be strongly intellectual, powerfully and actively stimulative of good, and pleasing only or chiefly because of these qualities. What can be more shocking or unreasonable than to see an English school-boy praising English poetry for being melodious and sensuously beautiful, yet ashamed to say that it is powei fully thoughtful and morally sublime, while that very boy by reason of the strong English brain and virtuous English blood within him wants to give the higher praise because he deeply knows and feels it and doesn't care about the music and merely sensuous beauty, because they do not greatly appeal to his character and capacity. Many may doubt whether this state of things exist. Let any one read to a class of young students the very best work of the so called aestheuc school, a picture of heavenly beauty a[>[jealing to eye, ear and imagination — such a passage as would THl DEFINITION OF POBTBT. 159 have intoxicated Keats, for example hia own ode, " To the Nightingale" which can hardly be Burpassed surely in that way. Let him notice carefully the effect on the class : they will be pleased a little possibly, perhaps apathetic, at best they Tv^ill forget the impression in less than a week. Perhaps it may be argued that the piece is too difficult, but easier pieces will be equally ineffective. Next read tliem a poem full of thought, strong, didactic and like a lash to the will ; let it be harsh in sound, clumsy in imagery, and obscure in meaning, for example George Meredith's *^ England Before the Storm" Now note the effect ; nearly every pupil is deeply moved, the room is elec- tric with intense feeling, every muscle of the undemonstrative Canadian face is tense with a profound emotion that no other power on earth ever roused — ^tluat the very parents of these boys have never suspected in them. Some may conclude that they need more training in the emasculate, bloodless, brainless aestheticism of the Theodore Watts school; but, we conclude that boys who are so built that the dross of ugliness and coarseness of fibre must be purged out and refined by poetrjf with brains and morality in it would be wasting their time on merely aesthetic vei'ses, and it seems to us that in this larger possession they have all the sensuous love of beauty that go well with strength and power. We do not want French or Japanese characters in this country, but English characters of the best and firmest type. It would be a long stride indeed if w© could abolish at once and forever that wretched exotic capiice that " didactic poetry is no poetry, and that aesthetic poetry is the only poetry " and substitute for it the rule that poetry in which truth and duty do not mingle in equal pro- portions with pleasure and beauty is not the poetry that has made England first in the literature of the whole world ancient and modem. It might now be wise to leave the reader to formulate hia own definition of a poem. At best his definition must be in ^«" i:'- '«•,*, THE DEFINITION Of POETBT. 161 What care we for bad grammar and outrageoaa diotion, "fighting rag" alone repays us for all our trouble and we. know that behind this Poet's forehead is a brain, kept alive bv a heart. And so it is from OhatiGer to Kipling, from Milton to El[avergal, from Shakespeare to Rossetti, we cannot spare one, we must stretch the definition to include every verse that ever roused or pleased anyone : we must conclude that poetry is the metiical expression of any thoughts or feelings that ever roused the soul of any reader whatever, even if the poet had but himself for audience. No one has a right to limit this unless he adds to his definition ** to me " and this is a case where it is less dogmatic to use the first personal pronoun than to omit it If we limit poetry (in order to keep a high standard) to the work of the greatest men, we may very well accept Shelley's opini0 (716) 872-4503 f papHB tiiWrnriVi iigllliMMII mam timm^mm mmm 168 WORDSWORTH. toward higher and more difficult work. In the former case we do well to throw all inductive and socratic methods at^Icile, and to get all the information we can about its meaning as rapidly and easily as possible ; in the latter case we do well to do every thing we can for ourselves, as in a mental gymnasium where every feat we perform unaided makes us stronger ♦» per form other and more difficult feats. The second method ia slower,* but while it gives more trouble, it gives greater rewards. When the former method is followed, care should be taken to accept no opinions without caieful consider- ation, and care should be taken that what is acquired so easily is not forgotten with equal ease. In the latter method the rule is, " Let nc one tell you anything that you can learn by your own efforts." The danger here is that time may be wacrt^ in work that is really not ri study of poetry at all — for example, y^ hunting up geographical and historical references which opght to be given in a convenient form in the notes ; also there is the danger that your own efforts may never be sufficient to put you in possestiion of the best qualities of the poem, and that you will forget that this rule does not forbid you to learn all that you can learn by any means from any one whatever, after you have done your best for yourselt Every good student of arithmetic desires to know whether he has reached 'Hhe right answer,^ and in order to know that, he turns to the teacher or " the back of the book ; " just so every good student of a poem will d^ire to compare his own views with those of his teacher or his editor ; but he shoidd work out the problem firsts if ho tootdd improve his potoers of reading with eompre- Iiensiofi. ^ An old artist was once asked what he thought of the judg- ment of the ordinary amateur with regard to pictures. He Implied astutely, '* An ordinray amateur doesn't know wlmt to look for in a picture." Could any words express better Hie tjelation of an ordinary reader to a poem ) An (nrdinary readw mmmm THE STUDY OP A FOEM. 169 does^nt know what to look for in a poem. Ho is like a be^^gar kicking precious gold ore aside with his tattered boots be- cause he does not recognize its worth ; he may even go so far as to laugh at the miner who tells him of its value. To tell a good poem from a poor one without assistance, even the assistance of the author's name, is to l>3 able to read poetry with true critical acumen. Of course critic? diflfer, tastes differ, but there are poems, as well as pictures and faces, of undisputed beauty and worth, and the student is no longer an ordin ary amateur critic who can discern Jtuch works unaided. Per- haps then the best way to read poetry is to read some poems chiefly for their own sakes— these would be acknowledgsd masterpieces, concerning whose value and power all the world agree ; and then also to read some poems chiefly for exercise of the critical powers, avoiding the opinions of others until ws have reached a — ^not too dogmatic — opinion of our own. In the / present voulme it would be well to mast<5r the Ode to Duty] and Th« Ode to Immortality in a reverent spirit of admirarf tion. These poems are so sublime and so generally command the awe and wonder of the cultivated that it would not be amiss in a young person to entertain an almost superstitious respect for their genius, even before their merits are realized. Respect for the authority of universal cultivated opinion is not a mark ot weakness in a student. With reference, however, to some of the poems in this collection that are not so famous, greater freedom of judgment may be exercised, and their rank may be assigned with a due regard for their merits as discovered by diligent search. "Censure me in your wisdom," said Brutus^ "but awake your senses that ye may the better judga" In order that the beginner may not be quite at a loss as to how to proceed in studying a poem, a plan is appended below which may be of some use to those who have not the guidance of teachers. Any saoh scheme of study must be used with -V ^ "7^ '■■fl'""Hlr^'^^'Vl" ■»!>««'"« ir^ Wordswouti*. ii. i (/) P.issages that strikingly illustrate certain qualities of style and phases of emotion. In some cases it is well to memorize the poem before studying it minutely ; generally perhaps it is better to defer the memor- izing until after the poem has been thoroughly studied. It is well to understand the claFsification of poc is for this reaf'on : an artist's succesb must be judged largely by his inten- tions ; if a poet designs a play for the stage, it is a failure if it does not please in the theatre ; but if he tells us that bis play is meant to be read but not acted, he is judged by a different standard. It is not wise in a critic to say of a short story, *• this is not a good novel," any more than it is to blame a schooner for not being a racing yacht. Hence, every student should know the kinds of poetry, and endeavour to learn the rules of structure that apply to each kind, so that he may praise or censure with due regard to the author's intentions ; the wild and lawless^ frenzy of Gray's Bard is not inappropriate in an odSf but the same license of language and piuision would be shocking in an elegy. Matthew Arnold's defence of the illogical but natural and convenient Greek classification of (>oems into epic, lyric a-nd dramatic, will commend itself to adl who have compared ii with more logical but less convenient divisions. Although it m not well to consider the fame of the author when we read poems in a scientific spirit, it is certainly wisi- to learn all we can of his character, life, and motives, before considering that we have come into full possession of his works. This is the univei-sally accepted view, and though it l^ds to serious abuses it also has many arguments to support it The danger of reading the life of an author is that the stu- dent will assume a spurious admiration for his works because he has accept^ the opinions of ^ biographer without earning the right eitiier to agree with him or to differ from him. Certain it is that weakminded readers are in danger of praising raptur- f ] ] t c r t >) s » ^m tas STUDY of A POEM. 178 ously poems they have nover read, and speaking of poets as their favourites whom they know only through the " books about books." And yet the spurious admiration is harmless ; it is the superstition of the worshipper who has faith because he cannot know^ and being entirely with literature cannot be against it also. These same readers, if they had not this faith, would perhaps be Philistines of a dseper dye. Again is it not on the whole more conducive to uweetness and light that a large and wise authority such as the biographers possess should sway the ign027.nt than their own ugly and petty prejudices? It is the old question of authority against individual opinion. Our own opinion is that, after a fair effort at understanding the poet's work, the student should make a thorough study of the poet's life and times. Moreover, it seems likely that having experienced a reaction from the days when *' Collier's Litera- ture " took the place of the study of the masterpieces, and having on account of that reaction abandoned the study of the history of literature almost entirely, we have reached an extreme scarcely less detrimental to the best interests of the study of literature than the former condition had proved : " truth lies between " : a cultivated reader should have an intelligent knowledge of the schools of authors and of the biographies of authors, as well as a thorough acquaintance with their best productions. There is some use in lists of names of authors and books. Many a pupil is leaving cur schools nowadays a positive ignoramus for lack of a few lessons iu the history of literature. Having thus finished the general consideration of the poem, we proceed to a detailed study of its words and sentences as shown in the table below. After this it is sometimes helpful to write a critique of the poem, as if for publication in a review, dealing with the most striking and original qualities discerned in it. Finally it is well to consider the poem as an exercise in elocu- li' li! i ' ^^"FiPlfWiiPWf^p^wipilip 9!m»F. ''^WBlTPfPPiiWW^PiPiPPi?^ 9gmmim 174 WORDSWORTH. tion ; gi*eat care should be taken to read with feeling and thougbtfulness, and to avoid affectation of all kinds and mere doclamation. SomQtimea it is a good means of getting at the style of a poet to com})are what he says on a subject with the words of another writer on the aauio subject. Dozens of poems have been written on the sky-lark ; and it is very often possible for a well read person to find parallel passages from Shakespeare and Milton, and Coleridge and Shelley, for comparison with Wordsworth's poems. The following table is offered not as exhaustive but merely as suggestive. Neither is. the order in which the divisions are ' given meant to be followed nor is it intended that all these divisions should be applied to the study of every poem. It is hoped liowever, that it will, if kept before the student, prevent him from leaving the poem before he has considered the most important topics ; in reading a poem one may become so absorbed in one phase of it as to leave it without noticing other important matters. When this scheme is applied to a drama, it should be supplemented by other divisions, especially (a) Characterization, and (6) The ha/rmony or keeping ',>etween the character and his words. SOME OF THE POINTS TO CONSIDER IN THE STUDY OF A POEM. I. — THE CENTRAL IDEA. 1. Tho choice of subject and its relation to the author's character and genius. 2. The name of the {wem as compared with the central idea. 3. The synopsis by stanzas or sections. 4. The unity of the poem and of the sections. 5. The order of the sections 6. The selection of material — what thr ithor mentions, what he might have mentioned but omits. r'-\ MfW Kpnp mmm mi TIIK STUDY OF A POEM. 175 ^•^ 7. The originality of the work : its rdatioa to the period in wliich it was produced. 8. The harmony of the idea and the literary form selected : Is the form too insignificant for the thought, or the thought for the form ? II. — THE MEMORIZING. 1. Memorize from motives suggested above. 2. Consider the grounds of popularity of hU well-known or frequently-quoted parts, III. CLASSIFICATION. 1. Classify poem as epic, lyric, dramatic. 2. Classify poem as descriptive (jw^rceptive), lyrical (feeling), reflective (thought), epic and dramatic (action). :3. Define great epic, historical epic, ballad epic, ballad, song, hymn, ode, elegy, dirge, sonnet, tiagedy, comedy, and make a I list o fsimilar technicalities. 4. Show clearly that one kind of poem may use devices that are not permissible in another. IV. — THE AUTHOR. 1. Give some account of the life, works, stylo, rank and in- fluence of the author. 2. To what extent do his works reveal his mind (subjective) ; to what extent do they deal purely with matters outside his own personality (objective) 1 3. Trace the rise and fall of English poetical power through its various stages since Chaucer's time. 4. Show the relation of the period in which Wordsworth wrote to the period preceding it, also to the Victorian period. V. DETAILED STUDY. I. Consider peculiarities of spelling, use of capitals, marks of punctuation. iPpippiip|i^*»pw»i^Wifpi»>'"wP"W"^PW»PlPiW ^mimm^ir^wmimmimimmm'mF' wmw 176 womDewoRTH. 2. Consider the appearanoe of the book, and cultivate a taste in binding, printing, and similar matters. 3. Consider the vocabulary. Poetic words ; prose words ; precise synonyms; strong, metaphorical and picturesque words; archaic, long, technical, harsh, obscure, redundant words; words of interesting origin. 4. Consider diction. Arrangement of words and meaning of woi-ds and phrases are the most important. Diction may be verbose, full, foreign, English. 6. Consider the length and deameea of the sente^ices. 6. Consider the relation of the sentences to the lines. 7. Consider the devices of Ian guRge 'which the poet uses to produce odd and beautiful effects. It is probably wise to learn the names of these ** figures of speech," not because hard names help us, but because a know- ledge of the names leads us to observe the devices moie frequii y, (The following list is given partly as an amusing curiosity of mediaeval pedan^^y. Paronomasia, metaphor, asyndeton, panu leipsis, proverb, uimile, polysyndeton, allusion, repartee, person- ification, litotes, anacoenosis, sarcasm, allegory, epanerphosis, anagram, syllepsis, metonymy, epanorthosis, antonomasia, synec- doche, apostrophe, apologue, transferred epithet, vision, aposio- pesis, alliteration, antithesis, hyperbole, enigma, assonance, oxymoron, climax, catachresis, ecphonesis, anaphora, erotesis, epizeuxis, epiphora, irony, epanalepsis, euphemism, anadiplosis, inuendo, hypotyposis, palilogia, zeugma, epanaphora, epigram, metalepsis, antistrophe, prolepsis, parable, aphaeresis, syncope, apocope, metathesis, onomatopoeia, imitative harmony, anacolu- thon, tautology, i*edundancy, invocation, euphuism, anticipation, httidiadys, hypallage.) - r . Figures of comparison and contrast, figures of imitation of - lound, and of repetition for emphasis, should be notioed most. iwlp" Mpm mmfmm mm THR STUDY OP ▲ POEM. 177 8. Consider the rhyme, metre, and rhythm of the poem, par- tictilaily the rektion of the versification to the sabject- matter. 9. Consider the emotions roused by the poem. Rmotions range from the lofty and elevated sentiments of religion and sublirhity through the middle octaves of eveiy-day life to the dark passions of murder, revenge, hatred and jealousy. In which octaves of the emotional key-board does Wordsworth playl VI. — THE CRITIQUE. 1, Write an essay on the poem — point oat its beauties (and faults or defects) of language, thought, emotion and moral tone. Vn. — BLOOUTION. 1. Read the poem thoughtfully and with considerable feeling. 2. Write notes on the pauses, emphasis, inflections, rate, pitch, quality of voice, force, loudness, pronunciation, expres- sion. ^ VIII. — STYLE. 1. State the respects in which your poet differs from other poets. 2. What adjectives would ycu use in describing his style of writing f It is intended that the poem should be read twice for the meaning, once for the general, and once for the particular meaning. Of course the memorizing and the elocution may require several other readings. It is the difficulty of carrying all the important considerations concerning the study of a poem in the mind at once that justi- fies one in keeping before the eye a table of this sort. We tidst that some i-eaders may make this table a nucleus for their own notes and observations regarding the best plai| for studying a poem. "iMa I V, CHAPTER IV. CRITICAL ESTIMATES OF WORDSWORTH. "/ oanitot tell how the truth may be ; I toy the tale a$ 'tuiae sold to me. " —Lay 9t tke Uut UliuitnL ■■PliPlli«!W|PiPipw«iiWI«^^!Pipppp'^Pfl^^ ^^■■»p«pplpipi»' I 1 1 1 ^ _ ' ^i<«ii|vi.|vf ., !iiin«i,«n n ni;i{|iijiv-i«iipp*piii^ip!mnif* ^»^pw^^^^l||WpflMpi«ipil"W"iPli«IW8 SWBjSWf'TiSO |- OSITIOAL ESTIMATES.* IVom Jame$ BtuseU IxnotU — Tbe apostle of imagination. Frofin JELai^Mt — Nihii hv^nani a me alienum puto is the motto of bis works. From Sir WaUer SecU— I do not know a man more to be venerated for uprightness of ^eart and loftiness of genius, From Stopford A. Brooke — The greategt of the English poets of this century ; greatest not only as a poet, but as a philosopher. From, FrofeuoT WUion — Wordsworth's sonnets, were they all in one book, would be the statesmanX warrior's, priest's, sage's manual. From EliMheth Barrett [afterwards Mrs. Brutoning] — Chaucer and Burns made the most of a daisy, but left it still a daisy ; Wordsworth leaves it transformed into his thoughts. ^om Thonuu Moore — One of the very few original poets this age (fertile as it is in rhymers qucUes ego et Clavienut) has had the glory of producing. From Bobert Southe}f — Jeffrey, I hear, has written what his admireiti call a erushing review of **The Excursion" He might as well seat himself upon Skiddaw and fancy that he crushed the mountain. m i* a 182 WORDSWORTH. From Lord Jeffrejf — This will never do. ... It (" The Excursion ") is longer, veaker, and earner than any of Mr. Wordsworth's other pro- ductions ; with less boldness of originality, aSd less even of that extreme simplicity and lowliness of tone which wavered so prettily in the "^ Lyidi^al Ballads " between silliness and pathos. From Haditt — Fools have laughed at, wise men scarcely understand them (Wordsworth's Ballads). He takes a subject or a story merely as pegs or loops to hang thought and feeling on ; the incidents are trifling in proportion to his contempt for imposing appear- ances; the reflections are profound, according to the gi-avity and the aspiring pretensions of his mind. Wordsworth's manner of using books. From Thomas De Quincey — Wordsworth lived in the open air, Southey in his library, which Coleridge used to call his wife. Southey had particularly elegant habits (Wordsworth called them iinical) in the use of books. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was so negligent and so self-indulgent in the same case that, as Southey, laughing, expressed it to me some years afterwards, when I was staying at Greta Hall on a visit, " To introduce Wordsworth into one's library is like letting a bear into a tulip garden." WOBDSWOBTHS GENIUS. From 8. T. OoUridge— I think Wordsworth possessed more of the genius of a gt*eat philosophic poet than any man I aver knew, or, as I believe, has e> sted in England since Milton ; but it seems to me that he 01 ht never to have abandoned the contemplative position whicii is peculiarly — perhaps I may ^say exclusively — jtted for him. His proper title is Spectator ab esUra. a i; r c 1 mmt ■Ml critical bstimatb8. Wordsworth's healthfulnsss. From Matthew Arnold- Time may restore us, in his oonrse, Gk>etha'8 sage mind and Byron's force ; But when will Europe's latter hour Again find Wordsworth's healing ^yower ? Keep fresh the grass upon his graye, O Rotha ! with thy living wave ! Sing him thy best, for few or none Hear thy voice 'right, now he is gone. WORDSWORTH S UNIQUE DISTINCTION. From Thomas Carlyle — The incouiraunicable, the immitigable might of Wordsworth, when the god has inde3d fallen on him, cannot but be felt by all, and can but be felt by any ; none can partake and catch it up. There are men much greater than he ; there are men much grc£;ter ; but what he has of greatness is his only. His concentration, his majesty, his pathos have no parallel; none haye touched precisely the same point as he. - WORDSWORTH 8 BANK. From Bohert Southey — Wordsworth's residence and mine are fiften miles asunder— « sufficient distance to preclude any frequent interchange of visits. T have known him nearly twenty years, and for about half that time intimately. The strength and the character of his mind you eee in "The Ebccursion;" and his life does not belie his writings; for in every relation of life and point of view he is a truly exemplary and admirable man. In conversation he is powerful beyond any of his contemporaries ; and as a poet — I speak not from the partiality ot friendship, nor because we have been aV>8urdly hold up as both writing upon one concerted system of poetry, but with the most deliberate exeroiae <^ impai*tial lilpppiiwilppfppplli' 184 W0BD8W0RTB. jadgment whereof I am ca}>able when I declare my full oon- viotion that posterity will rank him with Milton. BXOESSIYB SIMPLIOITT. From Elizabeth Barrett [aftenjoards Mrs. Browning], — "Hero- worshippers/' as we are, and sitting for all the critical pretence — in right or wrong of which we siieak at all — at the feet of Mr. Wordsworth, recognizing him a£i we do a poet-hero of a movement eicdential to the bett^ being of poetry, as poet- prophet of utterances greater than thoE>e who first listened could comprehend, and of influences most vital and expensive, we are yet honest to confess that certain things in the " Lyrical Ballads," which most provoke the ignorant, innocent hootings of the mob, do not seem to us all heroia Love, like ambition, may overvault itself, and Betty Foys of the Lake School (so called) may be as subject to conventionalities as Pope's Lady Betties. And perhaps our great poet might, through the very vehemence and nobleness of his hero and prophet work for nature, confound, for some blind moment, and by an pssociation easily traced and excused, nature with rusticity, the simple with the bald, and even fall into a vulgar conventionality in the act of spurning a graceful one. A LAMPOON. From Lord Byron — We learn from Horace *' Homer sometimes sleeps?" We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes wakes — To show with what complacency he creeps With his dear " Wi^oners " around his lakes. He wishM for a ** boat " to sail the deeps — Of ocean f No, of ur ; and then he makes Another outcry for a " little boat," And drivelB seas to set it well afloat. *i? mmfimmm ^pp^ppp«p wimimmmifm^mmmm IPRWH ORITIOAL ESTIMAtSS. l85 If he must £ain sweep o'er th' ethereal plain. And Pegasus runs restive in his "Wagon," Could he not beg the loan of CharWs Wain ? Or pray Medea for a single dragon t Or if, too classic for his vulgar K'ain, He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on, And he must needs mount nearer to the moon, Gould not the blockhead ask for a balloon ? " Peddlers " and " Boats *• and " Wagons I " Oh ye shades Of Pope and Dryden, has it come to this ? That trash of such sort not alone evades Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss FI ats scum-like uppermost, and these Jack Cades Of sense and song above your giaves may hiss — The " little boatman" and his " Pater BelL" Can sneer at him who drew " Achitophel I ' i»» *From WhtUier— WORDSWORTH. w:bitten on a blank lbaf of his mbmoibs. Dear friends, who read the world aright, And in its common forms discern A beauty and a harmony The many never learn ! Kindred in soul of him who found In simple flower and leaf and stone The impulse of the sweetest lajs Our Saxon tongue has known, — Accept this record of a life As sweet and pure, as calm and gc^ As a long day of blandest June In green field and in wood. How welcome to our ears, long pained By strife of sect and party noise, The brook-like murmur of hin wmg Of nature's mmple joys I t f < '' 1 +1 l« ■^•■■^p mmmmimmmfmm W^m tmm ■H mmmmmmmmmmm 186 WORDSWORTH. The Tiolet by its mossy stone, The primrose 1:^ the river's brim, And chance-Bown daffodil, have fomid Immortal life through him. The Punrise on his breezy lake, The ro£fy tints his sunset brought, World-seen, are gladdening all the vales And mountain-peaks of thought. Axt builds on sand ; the works of pride And human passion change and fall ; But that which shares the life of Ood With him surviveth all. ruskin's opinion or Wordsworth's powers. jprotn Budein — Wordsworth is simply a Westmoreknd peasant, with con- siderably less shrewdness than most border Englishmen or Scotsmen inherit; and sense of humor: but gifted (in this singularly) with vivid sense of natural beauty, and a pretty turn for reflections, not alwayp acute, but, as far as they reach, medicinal to tiie fever of the restless and corrupted life around him. Water to parched lips may be better than Samian wine, but do not let us therefore confuse the qualities of wine and water. I much doubt there being many inglorious Miltons in our country churchyards ; but I am very sure there are many Wordsworths resting there, who were inferior to the renowned one only in caring less to hear themselves talk .... I am by no means sure that his influence on the stronger minds o^ his time was anywise hastened or extended by the spirit f)i tunefulness under whose guidance he discovered that Heayen rhymed to seven, and Foy to boy. Tuneful neverthe* less at heart, and of the heavenly choir, I gladly and frankly acknowledge) him ; and our English literature enriched with a ■IWB m^^. ! f .PIVI,"' •»« Hapipppi^Vnm "p- i»|%"LiL -liiJJi P'l. . ■' J ).*UJIP!( j^i'' CRITICAL MTIMATBS. HWH'PjJipWJ 187 IjjW.JIjlH uiiyMt:-!!* new and singular virtue in the aerial purity and healthful rightness of his quiet song ; but a«rial only— not ethereal; and lowly in its privacy of light. A measured mind, and calm ; innocent, unrepentant ; help. ' ful to sinless creatures and scatheless, such of the flock as do not stray. Hopeful at least, if not faithful ; content with intimations of immortality such as may be in skipping of Iambs, and laughter of childi-en — incurious to see in the hands the print of the nails. A gi-acious and constant mind ; as the herbage of its native hills, fragrant and pure; — yet, to the sweep and the shadow, the sti-ess and distress, of the greater souls of men, as the tufted thyme to the laurel wilderness of Tempfi,— as the gleaming euphrasy to the dark branches of Dodona. Wordsworth's fame. From James Russell Lowell — Of no other poet except Shakespeare have so many phrases become household words as of Wordsworth. If Pope has made current more epigrams of worldly wisdom, to Wordsworth belongs the nobler praise of having defined for us, and given us for a daily possession, those faint and vague suggestions of o«her-worldliness, of whose gentle ministry with our baser tfature the hurry and bustle of life scarcely ever allowed us to be conscious. He has won for himself a secure immortality by a depth of intuition which makes only the best minds at their best hours worthy, or, indeed, capable, of his companionship, and by a homely sinceiity of human sympathy which reaches the humblest heart Our language owes him gratitude .for the habitual purity and abstinence of his style, and we who speak ii for having emboldened us to take delight in simple things, and to trust ourselves to our own instincts. And lie hath his reward. It needs aot to bid T i A K i ■NWI^«P^ppp^^p»i^»P mmmmmmmmmmmmmm ■'ly^i-y. ;.,.,.. i8d WORDSWOitTtt. " Renowned Oh&uoer lie a thought more nigh To rare Beaumond, and learned Beaiunond lie A little nearer Spenser ; " , for there is no fear of crowding in that little society with whom he is now enrolled as J^/'th in Uie aucceasion <^ the great English poeta. WORDSWOBTH'S OFVIOS. Vrom J. 0. Shairp — Perhaps I cannot better sum up the whole matter than by adopting, if I may, the words of a correspondent. He observes (1) That while Wordsworth spiritualizes the outward world more than any other poet has done, his feeling for it is essen- tially manly. Nature he always insists, gives gladness to the glad, comfort and support to the sorrowful. (2) There is the wondrous depth of his feeling for the domestic affections, and more especially for the constancy of them. (3) He must be considered a leader in that greatest movement of modem times — care for our humbler brethren ; his part being not to help them in their sufferings, but to make us reverence them for what they are, and what they have in common with us or in greater measure than ourselves. These are the tendencies breathed from every line he wrote. He took the commonest sights of earth and the homeliest household affections, and made you feel that these which men commonly take to be the lowest things are indeed the highest. If he seldom ventures within the inner sanctuary, he every- where leads to its outei' court, lifting our thoughts into a region "neighbouring to heaven, and that no foreign hand." If he was not ujiversal in tho sense in which Shakespeare was and Qoethe aimed to be, it was because he was smitten with too deep an enth^isiasm for these truths by which he was possessed. His eye was too intense, too prophetic to admit of his looking ORtTICAL BETIMATEa. 189 at life (Irarnatically. In fact, no poet of modern times has had in him 80 much of the prophet. In the world of nature, to be a revealer of things hidden, the sanctiHer of things common the mtei-preter of new and unsuspected relations, the opener of another sense in men ; in the moral world, to be the teacher of - truths hitherto neglected or unobserved, the awakener of men's hearts to the solemnities that encompass <:hem, deepening our i-everence for the essential sou], apart from accident and circum- stance, making us eel more truly, more tenderly, more pro- foundly, lifting the thoughts upward through the shows of time to which is permanent and eternal, and bringing down on the transitory things of eye and ear some shadow of time to that which is permanent and etei-nal, till we '* Feel through all this fleshly dr«M Bright shoots of everkstingness." This is the office which he wUl not cease to fulfil as long as the English language laats. THE LOST LEADER.' JFrom Robert Browning — 1. Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a ribbon to stick in his coafc— Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us. Lost all the otheirs, she lets us devote ; They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver. So much was theirs who so little allowed : How all our copper had gone for his service ! ^^— ^ere they purple, his heart had been proud I •Thi. poem is always taken as referring to Wordsworth. Wordsworth in youth was a revolutionist, in .«e a strong conservative.* Browning writir.«r of th"/r!^^ aAnlU that he thought o, Wordsworth's change of views. U^^, ^i^:^;^ Jjt^work 01 art with hio. than « i^tack upon that poet ; raU^r ideal Si i" mgtimm mimmti [.It .. iiiiiMi ;»l,|lHill|p»iL|lii|lip!ll||||riB|ip|iniW MHiPP Pk«n<< mmmm ^-,v 1 1 ^m m ■ ;^ ■m E^k'- i -I^^^^^Bi H • fl^K B ) 9iH ^K^ K IdO WORDSWORTH. Wo that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Made him our pattern to live and to die ! Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, Bums, Shelley, were with us,— they watch from their graves ! He alone breaks from the van and the free man, lie alone sinks to the rear and the slaves 1 u. We shall march prospering, — not through his presence ; Songs may inspirit us,— not from his lyre ; Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence. Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire ; Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod. One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels. One wrong more to man, one more insult to Gcd ! Life's night begins : let him never come back to us ! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain. Forced praise on our part —the glimmer of twilight. Never glad confident morning again ! Best fight on well,— for we taught him— strike gallantly, Menace our heart ere we master his own : Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! A FRENCH ESTIMATE. From JB. A. TavM — Wordsworth's moulds are of bad, common clay, cracked, unable to hold the noble metal which they ought to contain. But the metal is really noble, and besides several very beantiful sonnets, there is now and then a work — among others his largest, "The Excursion*'— .u which we forget the poverty of the getting up ^o admire the purity and elevation of the thought. In truth, the author hardly puts himself to the CRITICAL XSTIMATRS. 191 ti ed, in. ful his of the the trauble of imAgiinng ; b« walks along, and converfleR with u pious Scotch peddler -thig is the whole of the story. The l>oet8 of this school ahvays walk, look at nature, and think of human destiny — it is their permanent attitude. He conTeraes, then, with the peddler — a meditative character who has been educated by a long experience of men and things, who sijoaks very well (too well !) of the soul and of God, and relates to him the history of a good woman who died of grief in her cottage ; then he meets a solitary, a sort of sceptical Hamlet — morose, made gloomy by the death of his family and the disappoint- ments suffered during his long journeyinga ; then a clergyman, who took them to a village church-yard and described to them the life of several interesting people who are buried there. Observe that just in proportion as reflections and moral dis- cussions arise, and as scenery and moral descriptions spread before us in hundreds, so also dissertations entwine their long thorny hedge-rows, and metaphysical thistles multiply in every corner. In short, the |X>em is as grave and dull as a sermon. And yet in spite of this ecclesiastical air, and the tirades against Voltaire and his age, we feel oui-selves impressed as by a discourse of Theodore Jouffi-oy. After all, Woixlsworth is convinced. He has spent his life meditating on these kinds of ideas — they are the poetry of his religion, race, climate ; he is imbued with them ; his pictures, stories, interpretations of visible . nature and human life tend only to put the mind in a grave disposition which is proper to the inner man. I enter here as in the valley * f Port Royal : a solitary nook, stagnant waters, gloomy woods, ruins, grave-stones, and above all the idea of responsible man and the obscure beyond, to which we involuntarily move. I forget the careless French fashions, the customs of not disturbing the even tenor of llie. There is an imposing seriousness, an austere beauty in this sincere reflection; we begin to feel respect, we stop, and are moved. This book is lik*» a Protestant temple — august, though bare and monotonous. «wi#i|S< ♦ nam m^KHfimm n^iiipi I. ■nil II iiiii^ ■■.■ l|ni^q«pii|«||l|ppipwpti^piimBi|p||||pn|||pPH|pNM ^IW 193 WOKDSWOBTU. . . . . The verses sustain these serions thoughts by their i;rHve haimony, as a motet accompanies meditation or pmyer. 1'hey resemble the grand and nionotonouB music of the organ, which in the eventide, ut the close of Uie service, rolls slowly in the twilight of the arches and pillars. :«g WORDSWORTH IH CONVKESATION. From Sir Charle$ Oavan Duffff — On our first day's journey the casual mention of Edmnnrtraits of Titian, and, in a later period, among those of Vandyclr, from the great era of Charles I., as also from the court of Elizabeth and of Charles II. ; but none which has so much impressed rae in my own time. It was a face of the long order, often falsely classed as oval. The forehead was not remarkably lofty, but it m perhaps remarkable for its breadth and expansive development Neither are the eyes of Wordsworth " large," as is erroneously stated somewhere in "Peter's Letters;" on the contrary they are (I think) rather sm.dl ; but that does not interfere with their effect, wldch at times is fine and suitable to his intellectual character .... I have seon Wordsworth's eyes oftentimes affected powerfully in thk respect; his eyes are not, under any circumstances, bright, lustrous, or piercing ; but, after a long day's toil in walking, I have seen them assume an appearance the most solemn and spiritual that it is jiossible for the human eye to wear. The light which resides in them is at no time a superficial light, but under favomble accidents it is a light which seems to come from depths below all depths ; in fact, it is more truly entitled to be held "The light that never was on land or sea" — a light radia- ting from some fiar spiritual world than any the most idealizing light that ever yet a painter's hand created. The nose, a little arched and large, which, by the way (according to a natural phre- nology existing ctnturies ago among some of the lowest among the human species), has always been accounted an unequivocal expression of animal appetites organically strong. And that was in fact the basis of Wordnworth's intellectual power ; his intellectual passions were fervent and strong, because they rested upon a basis of animal sensibility superior to that of most men, diffused through aU the animal passions (or appe- tites); and something of that will be found to hold of all poets who have been great b/ original force and power, not (as Vir- gil) by meana of fine management and exquisite artifice of com- ^ ■fi ;■] Wi: u ''«"'*'5"''"*l^«'««'f^'"'W!^*PWii^^if^P^pPf^ WORDSWORTH. \ 196 I)osition applied to tiieir conceptions. The mouth, and the ragion of the mouth — the whole circumjacencies of the mouth — were about the atrongetit feature in Wordsworth's face. thb fivb characteristic defects op , Wordsworth's poems. From Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. The first characteristic, though onJy occasiorud defect, which I appear to myself to find in these jwems is tfbe inconstancy of the style. Under this name I refer to the sudden and unpre- pared transitions from lines or sentences of peculiar felicity (at all events striking? and original) to a style, not only unimpas- sioned but undistinguished. He sinks too often and too abruptly to that style which I should place in the second divi. sion of language, dividing it into the three species : first, that which is peculiar to poetry ; second, that which is only proper in prose; and third, the neutral or common to both. There have been works, such as Cowley's Essay on Cromwell, in which prose and verse are intermixed (not as in the Consolation of Boetius, or the Argenis of Barclay, by the inse-tion of poems supposed to have been spoken or composed on occasions pre- viously related in prose, but) the poet passing from one to the other as the nature of the thoughts or his own feelings dictated. Yet this mode of composition does not satisfy a cultivated taste. There is something unpleasant in the being thus oblif^/ed to alternate states of feeling so dissimilar, and this too in a species of writing, the pleasure from which is in part derived (rom the prepiiration and previous expectation of the reader. A portion of that awkwardness is felt which hangs upon the introduction of songs in our modern comic operas; and to prevent which the judicious Metastasio (as to whose exquisite taste there can be no hesitation, whatever doubts may be entertained as to his poetio genius) unifonaly placed the €wia at the end of tho CRrinCAL K8TI HATES. 197 BOMie, at the ^ame time that he almost always mises and impas- sions the style of thi> recitative immediately preceding. ..... The second defect I could generalize with' tolerable accuracy, if the reader will pardon an uncouth and new-coined word. There is, I should say, not seldom a matter-of-factness in certain poems. This may be divided into, tirat, a laborious minuteness and fidelity in the representation of objects, and their positions, as they appeared to the poet himself; secondly, the insertion of accidental circumstances, in order to the full explanation of his living characters, their dispositions and actions : which circum- stances might be necessary to establish the pit)bability of a statement in real life, where nothing is tal en for granted by the hearer, but appear superfluous in poetry, where the reader is willing to believe for his own sake. ...... Third ; an undue predilection for the dramatic form in net' tain poems, from which one or other of two evils result Either the thoughts and diction are different from that of the poet, and then there arises an incongruity of style ; or they are the same and indistinguishable, and then it presents a species of ventriloquism where two are represented as talking, while in truth one man only speaks. The fourth class of defects is closely connected with the former ; but ydt are such as arise likewise from an intensity of feeling disproportionate to such knowledge and value of the objects ('.escribed, as can be fairly anticipated of men in general, even of tBe most cultivated classes ; and with which thei-efoie few only, and those few particularly circumstanced, can be sup- posed to sympathize : in this class I comprise occasional prolix- ity, repetition, and an eddying instead of progression oi thought. As intiances, sef page 27, 28, of the Poems, vol. i.,* and the first eighty lines of the Sixth Book of The Excursion Fifth and last; thoughts and imag<'S too great for the subject. * Hm Anecdote for Fathws. i ! rr -I k: : i w ^^^TT < fWI'tP«J|?|ifBFili!f muji 198 -^fMTOP" 'WKBfK*. "I*", WUmmJ |l JWliI^l^J^)>lf^"l"IJ< I imjill 4)fWPWIWIpi^7W"W»"li'»W|l^»«l"'«PPIPI|ll"l""P*» TTGRDSWOHTH. This is an approximation to what might be called mental bom- bast, as distinguished from verbal ; for as in the latter there is a disproportion of the expr'sssions to the thoughts, so it. this there is a disproportion of thought to the circumstance and occasion. This, by-the-bj, is a fault of which none but a man of genius is capable. It is the awkwardness and strength ot Hercules with the distaff of Omphale SONNET TO WORDSWORTH.' From SheUvy-^ Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know That things depart which never may return : Childhood and >uuth, friendship, and love's first glow, Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn, These common woes I feel. One lost is mine, Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore. Thou wert as a lone star whose light did shine On some fraii bark in winter's midnight roar : Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood Above the blind and battling multitude : In honored poverty thy voice did weave Songs consecrate to truth and liberty. Deserting these thou leavest me to grieve. Thus, having been, that thou shouldst cease to be. COLERIDGE'S ODE TO WORDSWORTH. Friend of the wise ! and teacher of the good ! Into my heart have I received that lay More than historic, thai; prophetic lay Wherein vhigh theme by thee first sung aright) Of the foundations and the building up Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell I *Tlito Moaal •Qadas to Wordsworth's oonver>}on to oonaerviktire vitwa. f^mmmmmrwmi^^mflfm wmmmm. mmmmiim "Pippipp CRITICAL KSTIMATES. What may be told to the understanding mind lievealable ; and what within the mind By vital breathings secret as the soul Of vernal grwth, oft quickens in the heart Thoughts all too deep for words !— ^ Theme hard as high Of smilos spontaneous, and mysterious fears, (The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth) Of tides obedient to external force, And currents self-determined, as might seem, Or, by some inner power ; of moments awful. Now in thy inner life, and now abroad, When power streamed from thse, and thy soul received The light reflected, as a light bestowed— Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth, Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens Native or outland, lakes and famous hills ! Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars Were rising ; or by secret mountain streams, The guides and the companions of thy way ! Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense Distending wide, and man, beloved as man. Where France in all her towns lay vibrating Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst Of Heaven'3 immediate thunder, when no cloud Is visible, or shadow on the main. For thou wert there, thine own blows garlanded Amid the tremor af a realm aglow. Amid a mighty nation jubilant, When from the general heart of human kind Hope sprang forth like a full-bom Deity I Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down, So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self. With light unwaning on her eyes to look " Far on— herself » glory to behold. A. '-ys.;",|»V«W.'y-»-"P«»f!^)i iJpHIJiJU^^IP^mpwi^WP?^^^ 200 V WORDSWORTH. The Angel of the yision ! Then (last strain) Of duty, chosen laws controlling choico, Action and joy I — An orphio song indeed, A song divine of high and passionate thought* To their own music chanted ! O great Bard 1 Ere yet that hat strain dying awed the air, With steadfast eye I viewed thee in the choir Of ever-endun-igf men. The truly great Have all one age, and from one visible ^pace Shed influence ! They, both in power and act, Are permanent, and Time is not with them, . Save as it worketh for them, they in it Not less a sacred roll, than those of old. And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame Among the archives of mankind, thy work Makes audible a linked lay of Truths Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay. Not, learnt, but native, her own natural notes I Ah : as I listened with a heart forlorn. The pulse of my being beat anew ; And even as life returns upon the drowned. Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains- Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart ; And fears self-willed, that shun the eye of hope ; And hope that scarce would know itself from fear ; Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain. And genius given, and knowledge won in vain ; And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild. And all which patient toil had reared, and all. Commune with thee had opened out — but floweiH Strewed on my course, and borne upon my bier. In the same coffin, for the self same grave ! That way no more ! and ill beseems it me, Who came a welcomer in lierald's guise, Singing of glory, and futurity. CatTlCAL ESTIMATES. To wander back on such unhealthful road, Plucking the poisons of self-harm ! And ill Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths Strewed before thy advancing I Nor do thou. Sage Bard 1 impair the memory of that hour Of thy communion witli my nobler mind By pity or grief, already felt too long I Nor let my words import more blame than needs. The tumult rose and ceased : for peace is nigh Where wisdom's voice has found a listening heart. Amid the howl of more than wintry storms, The halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours' Already on the wing. Eve following eve. Dear tranquil tune, when the sweet sense of Home In sweetest I moments for their own sake hailed And more desired, more precious for thy song. In silence listening, like a devoted child, My soul lay passive, by the various strain Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, With momentary stars of my own birth Fair constellated foam,* still darting off Into the darkness ; now a tranquil sea. Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon. And when—0 Friend 1 my comforter and guide 1 Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength I— Thy long sustained Song finally closed. And thy deep voice had ceased— yet thou thyself Wert still before my eyes, arid round us both That happy vision of beloved faces— 20i ■4 « t«i *!. ^^ °*°''** °' '°*" '* momentmy intenral. ooumed by th« ride of the vend with » row-, and Uttle statB of the flame danced and eparkled and went out to It; and evenr now and then light detachment, of this white cloud-like foam ZZ^ ^^llTS'^llT^ "**^ **'°'" """" ««»«*«"*«o». over the -Ta^r^ «iu«fBbhtllk«aTartftrtroopor«r»wilderneM."-rA«#T<«iidp.8aBt "" "*™» 202 WORDSWOBTR. Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close I sate, my being blended in one thought (Thought was it ? or aspiration ? or resolve ?) Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound — And when I rose, I found myself in prayer. ■•w-'-..m . ..AfMimmm^mmmiflmSmt J|Jj.y^.t . iWi-iHLI. Ill . III. 111.^^^^^^^^ ■ IP I ''mtVf-r^,-,^^^.,,,^^ I*!l WfX, iMM CHAPTER V, SELECTED POEMS FOR SIGHT-WORK. Tfian pttats from blown roaam ao #*- 0/ ,Aa^o«,y granlU, In a gleaming pass - Music that gentller on the spirit lies/ Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes; Music ikat Mngs sweet sleep down from the tlUsfu, shlss." •—Tkii Lotos-Eutors. V. ' "■ "w|ps**i»»^F •"".'"*»» VI •» I w pi, ,j. lJJlll^^J[yJWll|wll^J^^^||^^|i»|Jpp^Mll"<«-'^^■ln « •■fW«''» ^VW^PPi^HPipnipHPpnipiPMHPpiilPMI^^ CHAPTER V. SELECTED POEMS FOR SIGHT- WORK. Bebak, Brbak, B&bak.* Break, break, break, On thy cold gray atones, O Sea I * And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. Owell for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play ! O weU for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay t And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill ; But O for the touch of a vaniah'd hand. And the sound of a voice th&«; is still t Break, break, break. At the foot of thy crags, O Sea 1 But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. 1. State and account for the author's mood in this poem. What is the subject of the poem ? " 2. Describe the scene before the poet's mind, aooounting>for the order in which he nr^ticee the different objects. 8. Explain how 11. 3-4, 11-12, and 16-16 are respectively connected in fmse with the proceeding context 4. Show how the poet has harmonised hi« language and versification with his thoughts and feelings. When qualities of style are exemplified in the poena ? Ai Write luief ebcutionary notes (m tibe poraa. to iibam qoirtlocvMe toomapHwrietbyMr. Seath,hi 1887. Tb UMwer tbem to a knowledffB ' ■■Hi*i»^w»i»n piy,*?! , j.mi « ijw ■• « iiig»^«p«wpippqpq«p«pmpMW|p|l|||p ■"T 206 WORDSWOBTU. SPEECH BY ULYSSES. Time .hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes : Those scraps are good deeds past ; which are devour'd, As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done : perseverance, dear ray lord. Keeps honour bright : to have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way ; For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast : keep then the patn ; For emulation hath a thousand sons That one by one pursue : if you give way, Or hedge aside ^m the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by And leave you hindmost ; Or, like n gallant horse fall'n in first rank. Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'er-run «^nd trampled on ; then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours ; For time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly. Grasps in the comer : welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Bemuneratior. or the thing it was ; For beauty, wio, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, liove, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. — T-i(nlu8 and Oreasida. ^ (a) In a prose paragraph of half a dozen lines, express the outline of thoa|(ht in this extaraot. (b) Criticise tJM principal similitudes on the following canons ot eritioismt ;? \ wmmmma SELBCTIBD POEMS FOB 8IGHT-W0BK. 207 1. There should be » marked difference between the original and the eompariton. 2. There should be a marked reiemblanoe in the relevant point of comparison. 3. TTie comparison should be more effective with the reader than the onginaL 4. The comparison should not be too obvious. «. The comparison should not be trite or worn out. a The oompfcrison should not be degrading to the original, abliii^ «>"»P»"«on abould not be so elevated as to render the origina! 8. The emotion of the comparison should be in line with that of the onginaL 9. T^e comparison should lend the charm of novelty, remoteness, ingenuity. ' 10. There should not be a mixture of similitudes in the one figcw. ENGLAND BEFORE THE STORM. The day that is the night of days. With cannon-fire for sun ablaze, We spy from any billow's lift ; And England still this tidal drift ! Would she to sainted forethought vow A space before the thunders flood, That martyr of its hour might now Spare her the tears of blood f Asleep upon her ancient deeds, She hugs the vision plethora breeds, And counts her manifold increase Of treasure in the fruits of peace. What curse on earth's improvident. When the dread trumpet shatters rest. Is wreaked, she knows, yet smiles content As oradle rocked from breast. i«.!it_^ps™n(l»f>ji.i^ ij , u ^ "jf » . u ".nmyj^jiBp^yw! •vnpnp '^wim^mimi'ifffiflsmm^'mimmmwffV' miWMi 208 WORDSWORTH She, impious to the Lord of Hoets, . The valour of her offspring boasts, Mindless that now on land and main His heeded prayer is active brain. No more great heart may guard the home. Save eyed and armed and skilled to cleave Yon swallower wave with shroud of foam, We see not distant heave. They stand to be her sacrifice, The sons this mother flings like dice, To face the odds and brave the Fates ; ■As in those days of starry dates, When cannon cannon's counterblast Awakened, muzzle muzzle bowled. And high in swathe of smoke the mast Its fighting rag outrolled. — Oeorge Meredilhf in tlie Athenaum, (a) Btate in a sentence the subbtanoe of this poem. (() State the anbstanoe of each stanza concisely, (e) Simplify the ex^restdons you find obsoortw EARTH'S PREFERENCE. Earth loves her young : a preference manifest : She prompts them to her fruits and flower-beds ; Their beauty with her choicest interthreads. And makes her revel of their merry zest. As in our East much were it in our West, If men had risen to do the work of headi. Her gabbling grey she eyes askant, nor treada The ways they walk j by what they speak oppressed. How wrought they in their zenith ? "Tis not writ ; Not all ; yet she by one sure sign can read : Have they but held her hvx^ and nature dear. r^'fm^ mi SELECTED POEMS POR SIOHT-WORK. 209 They mouth no sentence of inverted wit. More prizes she her beasts than this high breed W17 in the shape she wastes her milk to rear. — Oeorge Meredith, (a) ExproBs the central thought of this sonnet. (b) Paraphrase it into simple prose. THE SEA-LIMITS. CONSIDER the sea's listless chime : Time's self it is, made audible, — The murmur of the earth's own sheU. Secret continuance sublime Is the sea's end : our sight may pass No furlong further. Since time was, This soimd hath told the lapse of time. No quiet, which is death'*!,— it hath The moumf Illness of ancient life. Enduring always at dull strife. As the world's heart Ox rest and wrath. Its painful pulse is in the sands. Last utterly, the whole sky stands, Gray and not known, along its path. Listen along beside tiie sea, Listen along among the woods ; Those voices of twin solitudes Shall have one sound alike to thee : Hark where the murmurs of thronged men Surge and sink back and surge again. — StiU the one voice of wave and tree. Gather a shell from the strewn beach, A*id listen at its lips : they sigh The same desire and mystery. The echo of the whole sea's speech. I 210 WORDSWORTH. And all mankind is thus at h«art Not anything but what thou art : And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each. — Dante Gabrid RosetH. (a) Derelop the metaphor "shell" in line 3. (6) Explain '* Secret continuance suifUme.*' (c) Explain '* Our sight may paw no furlong further.^ . (d) Explain " J^To qulei, which m death's," (e) Explain line 4 and 5, stanza IL {/) Write notes on the motive, tone, harmony, and melody, of the poem. NIGHT AND DEATH. Mtsterious Night 1 when our first parent kr^ew Thee from report divine, and heard thy iiaiue, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue 1 Yet 'neath a curtain of t^ mslucent dew Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo I creation widened in man's view. Who oould have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy rays, O Sun, or who oould find, Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st ns blind ? Why do we then shun death with anxious strife, If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? — Jostjph Manco White. (a) Express briefly the central thought of this sonnel (h) Explain the alluidon in **our first parent knew Oiu fnym, report divine" asxdva '* Hesperus." (c) How do you reconcile the expressions "our first parent " and "in man's view"? {d) Explain *' such darkness lay concealed within thy beams." (e) Develop fully the comparison of Night and Death showing all points of simUarilgf. SELECTED POEMS FOB SIGHT-WORK. Whither, 'midst falling dew, While glow the he&vens with the last steps of day. Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way ? Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As darkly limned on the crimson sky. Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the pla^y brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rooking billows rise and sink On tho chafed ocean side ? 211 There is a power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — The desert and illimitable air, — Lone wandering, but not lost. All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere ; Yet stoop not, weaiy, to the welcome limd. Though the dark night is near. And soon that toil shall end ; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy shelter'd nest. Thou'rt gone ; the abyss of heaven Hath swallow'd up thy form ; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart. £te who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the lone way that I must tread alone, WiU lead my steps aright. I" VJiHJJlSP!) '.l"^.'.".? , .•ii'».'jfM">i;'"j(i_|;JWAW¥f' "Ti'w." HlJilMUVHU"" ^ ^IHB!J,H JP! .^11 ■|ili,flPP5JiPIBB(^^^«^Pl(I»«l»|^Min^^^«»fI«pp» 2^^ WORDSWORTH. 1. State fully the circnmstances luider which the different parts of this poem have professedly been written. 2. Give a fully descriptive title ; .md stats, conni^ctedly and without the poet's amplification, the leading thoughts. 3. State the poetic (or symbolic) meaning you attach to the long high flight of the bird and develop its significance in the details. 4. Would the deeper meaning not be obvious without the last stanza? Is it artistic to enlarge upon obvious abstractions in poetry? Underline parts in which the poet fails to use the couorete method. Justify the last stanza. % 6. Poetio imagination consists largely in finding analogies between the vrorld of mind and the external world ; in seeing deep truths in material objects : illustrate this from the poem above and from other poems. Ich teem nicht was soil es bedeuten, I OANNA tell what has come ower me That I am sae eerie and wae ; An auld-warld tale comes before me, It haunts me by nicht and by day. From the cool lift the gloamin' draps dimmer. And the Rhine slips saftly by ; Tne taps of the mountains shimmer I' the lowe o' the sunset sky. Up there, in a glamour entrancin*. Sits a maiden wondrous fair ; Her gowden adornments are glancin'. She is kaimin' her gowden hair. As she kaims it the gowd kaim glistens, The while she is singin' a song That bauds the rapt soul that listens, Witii ito melody sweet and strong. The boy, floating by in vague wonder, la seized with a wild weird love ; ^i^immif^'^m IPUPP mmmsM mmm. mmmmmmt wmmm SELBOTKD POEMS FOR SIOHT-WORK. 213 He sees na the black rooks under,-— He sees but the vision above. The waters their waves are flingin' Ower boatie and boatman anon ; And this, with her airtful singin*. The Waterwitch Lurley hath done. . Alexander Macmillan. a. Qive any reason why this dialect is suitable for translating Heine's ballad into English. b. State the substance of the poem io your own words: suggest a title for the poem. c What may be taken as the allegorical or symbolic meaning of this simple song? THE CASTAWAY.* Obscurest night involved the sky, The Atlantic billows roar'd, When such a destined wretch as I, Wash'd headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home for ever left. No braver chief could Albion boast Than he with whom he went. Nor ever ship left Albion's coast With warmer wishes sent. He loved them both, but both in vain ; Nor him beheld, nor her again. Not long beneath the whelming brine Expert to swim, he lay ; Nor soon he felt his strength decline, Or courage die away ; But waged with death a lasting strife, Supported by despair of life. *Ttik Oowper*! lasl poem. It ia founded on an aneodote in Anton'$ V^yagm, (IfaraliSOUi, 1799.) IV •vam • :i< M,.v>i,„.m>mi. . ^^ u..^| ■f«q^^^^^p^npPi«il||ilipppilii|||HpiPHH|^^ 214 WOBDSWORTH. He shouted ; nor his friends had fedl'd To check the yessers oouxbe, But so the furious blast prevaO'd, That pitiless peif orce They left their outcast mate behind, And scudded still before the wind. SojLte succour yet they could afford ; And, such as storms allow, The cask, the coop, the floated cord, Delay'd not to bestow : Bub he, they knew, nor ship nor shore. Whatever they gave, should visit more. Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he Their haste himself condemn. Aware that flight, in such a sea, Alone could rescue them ; Yet bitter felt it still to die Deserted, and Lis friends so nigh. He long survives, who lives an hour In ocean, self -upheld : And so lon^ he, with unspent power, His destiny repell'd ; And ever, as the minutes flew. Entreated help, or cried — "Adieu I** At length, his transient respite past. His comrades, who before Had heard his voice in every blast, Could catch the sound no more : For then, by toil subdued, he drank The stifling wave, and then he sank. No poet wept him ; but the page Of narrative sincere, That tells his name, his worth, his age. Is wet with Anson's tear : And tears by bards or heroes shed Alike immortalise the dead. I aSLKCTED POEMS fOB SIGHT-WORK. 215 I therefore purpose not, or dream. Descanting on his fate. To give the melanchofy theme A more enduring date : But misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case. No voice divine the storm allay'd. No light propitious shone, When, snatch'd from all effectual aid. Wo perish'd, each ak e : But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he. I . State in two or three sentences the line of thought in this poem. 2 Explain the expression " Snch a destined wretch as I." 3. Explain the pronouns of the second staqtsa. 4. Paraphrase the third stanza into simple prose: what is litotes Y (How is the word pronounced ?) 5. What is the charm of the line " That pitiless perforce" ? (IV. 4.) 6. Compare ''respite" (VIII. 1.) with rqnievef considering teiue not §8 xvii., xviii., adx., Coleridge's Biogra; '»ia Literaria and Minto's Wordsworth in the Encyc. Brit.) Does his own diction conform to his theory 1 What &re> the " vulgar errors " with regard to his views of poetic diction? Is his theory broad enough to cover the great variety of diction shown in Lnoy Gray, Michael, and the Ode on Intimations of Immortality ^ Or is some of his work written in defiance of his reasoned views 1 If you found him inconsistent would you consider his theory or his practice the more authoritative in fixing a canon of diction ) 6. Compare Shelley with Wordsworth in the matter of the selection of subject-matter and treatment. Contrast The Cloud with Michael in these respects. 7. In your own words, and concisely, tell the story of Michael with the purp<^ of setting forth its value as poetical material. 8. '' He assailod the public taste as ' depraved,' first and mainly in so far aa it was adverse to simple incidents simply treated, being accustomed to 'gross and violent stimulants,' 'craving after extraordinary incident,' possessed with a 'degrad- ing thirst after outrageous stimulation,' * frantic novels, sickly and stupid Q«rman tragedies, and deluges of idle and extrava- gant stories in verse.' " — Minto. Mention with comments works of his period that come within the meaning of his stricturea How would Shakespeare's tragediep bear the charge of depraving the public taste by "sensationalism"? What are the negative (as distinguished from the actual) merits of the story of Michael as told by Wordsworth I mmmmm m 234 I t 'i ! WORDSWORTH. X.— ODE TO DUTY. 1. Ib this subject suited to the character and genius of the poett Compare it with some of his other subjects va this respect. 2. Write if you can a name for the poem more fully significant of its central idea, yet artistic and concise. 3. State the principal idea of the poem in one clear sentence. 4. Set forfh the line of thought of the poem more fully : state the substance of each stanza in a dear sentence. 5. Show that the thought of each stanza has a duty in working out the thought of the whole work, and show the effect of deleting any stanza. 6. State witn reasons whether any of the stanzas might in your opinion be placed ir a different order from that in which you find them. 7. In selecting material for an Ode to Duty the poet might have chosen to speak of religious, civic, intellectual, moral, physical, social and domestic duties ; he might have indicated what our duties are in regard to many virtues. and rices; none of this material is ( 'ectly touched upon ; how do you account for his selection and rejection of material in a subject where material is so plentiful 1 8. Is there anything original in this poem f Is there any- thing in the classical literature of Greece and Rome that has the same spirit as this ode 1 Can you mention any other great poet who might have written this ode 1 Would the poem if appearing now for the first time be likely to command as great admiration as it has in fact commanded 1 9. Is the ode the best form for the material of this po«m f Wliy should it not have been a sermon or a hymnt Is the ode a dignified form of verse 't Name other great odes and compare them with this in form and substance. QUESTIONS. 2a6 10. State what r^uK>n8 account, in your opinion, for tlic statement that " all loYers of Wordsworth have, or ought to have by heart/' the Ode to Duty. 11. Is this ode purely lyrical, or has it dramatic or epic qualities) Compare it in this respect with Gray's " Thtt Bard." 12. Is it a poem of Perception, Feeling, Thought, or Action ? 13. Is t^e poem intended to impress us chiefly as a work ol artistic beauty, of elevating morality, or of profound truth ? 14. How does a sonnet differ from an ode? Can you give any reason why the substance of this ode might not have been as well embodied in a sonnet) 15. The central idea of this poem might have been worked out concretely in a tale similar to Micltael. What is the advantage of this comparatively abstract method ! What relieves this poem from the charge of being an abstract moral essay in yerse 1 16. To what extent is this poem subjective t 17. Is the poem a result to any degi*ee of the historical and social circumstances of Wordsworth's day, or does it rest upon less fleeting foundations % 18. Is there anything remarkable about the use of capitals or the punctuation of the poem? If so do these peculiarities seem to you to be in keeping with the substance 1 19. Are there any words or forms of words used in the ode that would not be used in (a) prose (of the grade of Macaulay's Essays) ; (5) conversation ? 20. Are there any words used that Pope, Gray or Tennyson would reject as unpoetical or prosy f 21. Are there any words that seem to be chosen less from the fact that they say precisely what the poet means than because they suit the exigencies of rhyme, metre, rhythm, euphony, or poetic diction ? k; ■•, ^i»lii^t»i|iip8pFTCr».w .1 iH,i 1 1 1 ',u..„.,ii^ges;wsm I i| > i: r >■ M.. 4 1 ■ 1 n i ■ X 23^ WORDSWORta. 22. There sometimes appears a curious felicity of expression ii. Wordsworth's poems, beautiful junctures of words not in themselves remarkable for beauty : can you point out such here) 23. Indicate any epithets or other words that strike you as strong or picturesque. 24. What proportion of words here are of foreign origin 1 How do the percentages of JEnglish and borrowed woftls in this work compare with the average percentages of literary works ^ 26. In the order of words and phrases are there many departures from the English prose order ? Whai; is Spencer's principle of economic order 1 Do the inversions here seem to be for economy of effort in understanding or from exigencies of verse 1 26. Explain clearly what Wordsworth means by the following expressions; simplify for the understanding of a child if possiblo : (a) " Daughter of the Voice of 6od" (b) " Who art victory cmd law When empty terrors overawed (c) " Who do thy work ; and know it not" (d) " The kindly impulse." (e) " When love is an unerring light." (f) " No Sport if every random gust." (g) " Unchartered freedom." (h) " The weight of chance desires." (i) " My hopes no more mu«ipipipii Qt}BSlt0li ilMMMifii MIRplMIMM^IpiMi ^ijillitliiililiiji.llll 1IJII|,I llllliPHWi 238 WOllDSWOttl'H 36. Even the most thoughtful poetry is usually imbued with emotion : our emotions may be roughly classified as ayJtliirte, (pertaining to powerful and elevated objects), co>nmon, ({)ertain- ing to our likes and dislikes for nature and human nature in the ordinary relations of life), and passionate, (pertaining to the animal instincts and to the darker phases of the human heart), Of which order are the emotions af this ode 1 In this respect is this ode a representative work of the author? Give names to the main emotions evoked by the ode, and account for their order. 37. What constitutes the poetic charm peculiar to this poem) 38. Would the moral tone of this poem be universally regarded as sound and right % 39. Make an elocutionary analysis of the poem on the following table : Bate Pitoh. ODE TO DUTT. Stem Daughter of the Voice of God t 0 Duty I \f that name tliou Ic ve Who art a l-ght to guide, a rod To clieck the erring, and reprove ; Thou, who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe; Frrnn. vain temptations dost set fi^ee ; And calmest the weary strife of frail humanity I There are who ask not if thine eye Be on Hiem ; who, in love and truths Wliere no misgiimg is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth : Glad Hearts ! without reproach or blot ; Who do thy work, and know it not : Long may the kindly impulse last ! But Thou, if they should totter, teach tliem to stand fast / Serene will be our days and bright^ And happy will our nature be. When love is an unerring ligfU, And Joy U* own Mcurity. Voice. Foice. Expres- SiOD. QUBSTIONa 239 Rate. Pitoh.! (Continued). And thei/ a blissful course may hold Even now, who, not uawisely hold, Live in the spirit of this creed ; Yet seek thy firm support, accordiny to their need. I, loving freedom, and untried; No sport of every random, gvM, Yei being to myself a guide. Too blindly have reposed my trust ; And oft, when in my heart was Jieard Thy timely mandate, I deferred The task, in smoother walks to stray : But tliee I now would serve mvre strictly, if I may. Through no disturbance of my soul, Or strong compunction in me wrought, I supplicate for thy control ; But in the quieiness of thoiigfU : Me this unchartered freedom tires; J feel tlie weight of chance-desires: My hopes no more ,iius* change their name, I lung for a repose that ever is the same. Stern Lawgiver/ yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace ; Nor know toe aiythiitg so fair Ah is the simile upon thy face : Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads ; Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong. And the most ancient Heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. To humbler functions, awfid Power ! J call thee : J Tnyself commend Unto thy guidance from this Iiour ; Oh, let my weakness have an end / Give unto me, made lowly toise, The spirit of self-sacrifice ; T/te confidmce of reason give ; And in the liglU of truth thy bondman lei me live/ Vi^oe. Force. Expres- uon. NoTB. — In the columns at the sides indicate the directions for reading by such terms as fast, iiodsrate, slow ; high, middls, low ; pure, orotund ; loud, mediup^ low .- soUmn, /er- Kimiiipiiii •MMatH^f 240 WORDSWORTH. LJ In the text itself underline the emphatic words ; mnt'lt rhetorical pauses by vertical lines ; and indicate inflections hy accents (^ and '). Add any necessary warnings concerning pronunciation hiuI articulation. 40. State any features of this poem that seem, to you to be distinctively Words worthian: could you in fact tell whether or not the poem deserves to be classed as a great work ? Could you believe it to be the work of a poet of little genius ? Give reasons. Write a list of adjectives that may qualify the word stylsy when style means characteristic literary expression of an author. From vour list choose such terms as describe Wordfr worth's style in this poem. lU 11 |i! Il CHAPTER VIL NOTES. "I wish either to 6« considered as a teacher or as nothing." — Wordsworth, IP— !^ < Q O CHAPTER VIL NOTES. Ed < a o THE REVERIE OF POOR SUSAN.— Page 33. Of this poem Wordsworth says, "The feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling." He adds that his purpose is to excite the interest of the reader without the use of "gross and violent stimulants." ** Poor Siuan" not only excites our cc .passion for the unfortunate, but lends dignity to the lower class by showing that they may have tender and even poetic sensibilities such as the touching recollections and the vivid imagination of this poor outcast. Wordsworth's biographer in the English Men of Letters Series, says: "He became, as one may say, the poet not of London considered as London, but of London considered as a part of the country. Like his own Farmer of TUshury Vale — Li the throng of the Town like a stranger is he, Like one whose own Country's far over the sea ; And Nature, while through the great city he hies, Full ten times a day takes his heart by surprise. Among the poems describing these sudden shocks of vision and memory, none is 'T'.ore exquisite than the Reverie of Poor Susan. The picture is one of those which come home to many a country heart with one of those sudden revulsions into the natural which philosophers assert to be the essence of human joy." The poem exhibits his regard for the common people and his prefer* ence for nature. ** Reverie-" — ^The French river means to dream. A rev(^ie is a wak- ing dream. When dream is used in a metaphorical sense it differs from reverie in the respect that reverie points to inconsecutiveness of thought, dream to unreality. Absent-minded persons fall into reveries, ambitious and ardent persons have dreams. 2. "Wood Street." — A street in London running north from pheM>si4e. 248 - v 244 WORDSWORTH. "when daylight appears." — Suggests the wretched condition of Susan. ' 3. "a Thrush."— "The song of the Thrush (or Throstle) is peculiarly rich, mellow and sustained, and is remarkable for the full purity of its intonation, and the variety of its notes. " "three years>" — T^ia caged Thruph seems like a symbolical shadow of Poor Susan, there is soincthing in common between them. Poets often use the numbers three and seven. Shakespeare says, "They say there's a divinity in odd numbers." 5. " silence of morning*" — The only silence known in parts of Lon- don. A good background for the Thrush's song. 6. "a note of enchantment." — Enchant^ as it happens, comes from eano, I sing ; what is the association between singing and enchantTne/nt ? "what ails her?" — What causes this question ? 8. "volnmes of vapour*" — What actual phenomena may ouggest vapour and river to Susan's enchanted fancy? What would "volumes of vapour " have meant in Susan's childhood home ? " Lothbury." — A street behind the Bank of England. 9. " Oheapside." — From M. K cheap meaning trade, 12. "like a dove's." — In what resijects ? 14. " in heaven." — What is meant ? 15. "mist," * river," "hill" and "shade," are in distributive apposition with " they : " note the expressions in stanza 2 to which these allude. 16. "will not-" — Suggest! the reluctance with which Susan relin- quishes her reverie : the roar of Loudon has drowned the enchant-er's song. » Show the reason of each stanza in the development of the poem. '^ Tell the story of Susan as suggested to your imagination by this poem. Would the poem be improved by adding the followiiig stanza as its conclusion?-!— *♦ Poor Outcast 1 Return — to receive thee once miore The house of thy father will open iti^ door. And then once again, in thy plain russet (;own, May'st hear the Thrush sing from a tree of its own." It occurs in the fii^t edition ; what has been gained by its suppression? NOTES. 240 WE ARE SEVEN.— (1798)— Page 33. 2. In the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads the first line of thia poem ia — A nmple child, dear brother Jim : The following note is by Wordsworth : " To retam to * We are Seven,' the piece that called forth this note, I composed it while walking in the grove at Alfoxden. My friends will not deem it too trifling to relate that while walking to and fro I composed the last stanza first, having begun with the last line. When it was all but finished, I came in and recited it to Mr. Coleridge and my sister, and said, * A prefatory stanza must be added, and j should .sit down to our little tea-meal with greater pleasure if my task were finished.' I mentioned in substance what I wished to be expressed, and Coleridge immediately threw off the stanza thus : ' A little child, dear brother Jem,' etc. I objected to the rhyme, 'dear brother Jem,' as being IndicrouS) but we all enjoyed the joke of hitching in our friend, James T 's name, who was familiarly called Jem." 20. " Conway."— Town in North Wales. 24. "churchyard COttaga*** — State condition of family from evi- dence in poem. 38, 40. Middle rhyme, a device of emphasis. 52. "released." — ^Does this harmonize with the language of this simple child of eight ? What preposition usually follows release in such constructions ? 53. " when the grass wab ^17." — What is this meant to suggest ? 60. ''forced." — Notice the pathos of ^is simple view expressed in the passive voice. 66. "dead." — No syllable rhymes with dead. Account for irregu- larities of rhyme in first and last stanzas. LUCY GRAY.— Page 36. This ballad occurs in the second volume of the Lyrical BaUads ; the ■econd title. Solitude, is not found in the first editions. The Modem English ballad had its origin in the ancient ballads of the Northumbrian dialect. This form of verae has flourished iu the southen) ""' ' '~il'''"!SIE?^ 246 WORDSWORTH. Scotch and in the nurthom English dialects for ages. Bishop Percy, bums and Scott, gave the ballad a wonderful vogue in the reign of Qeorge III., and many more recent writers have given ua excell. ut work fashioned more or less directly upon the old border songs. The answer to the question why Coleridge and other modem writers use the archaisms of the northern ballad- writers in their own ballads, is that the ballad had flourished so famously in the northern tongue that modem writers judged it wiae to preserve the forms in which it had seen great days. No description of these poems can do so much for the student as even a careless study of Percy's Beliquea, where he will find such poems as Sir Patrick Spence, King Cophetva and The Begyar Maid, Oemutua Ihe Jew of Venice, and many more famous for beauty and literary interest. The ballad was usually a song of love or war. Its versifi ation is often, indeed usually, that of Lucy Oray — a quatrain of wo tetrameters and two trimeters arranged alt«rnately, Usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme. The weakness ©f the versification of Lucy Gray arises largely from the fa'' that in more than a dozen instances the accent falls upon a weak w J, such as a. Hie, to, there, tn, jrom, by ; one line reads — *' Into the middle of the plank," and unless care is taken to shift the stress away from the syllables to and of, the effect is absurd. In the last stanza those who feel the beauty of tho poem will be careful to read it so as to avoid making it sound ridiculous : (indeed this is true of nearly every stanza : ) to in the first line of it, itf in the second, and yon in the third will not bear the stress their position implies. By common consent a ballad must 1h imple and direct : they usually open abruptly ; they are fond of the numbers flvree and Mvtn, Cole- ridge's Ancient Mariner is the greatest ballad in English. Heine's Bal- lads are perhaps the sweetest and tenderest k^ the world : theru is a beautiful translation in the Canterbury Series, but the Grerman is very easy. 2. What attitude does the poet take towards the story, judging from the first stnnza? 8. Notice all the expressions that impress the feelings of solitude. 12, 13. Account for the apparent irrelevance. 34. "But never reached the town-" ts this abrupt or euphem- istic? NOTBS. 247 43. The old reading is interesting,— ** And now they homeward tnmed, and cried,** The next stanza began with — '• Then downward from the steep hill's edge," Compare these readini;^ with those in the text, and «mdeavoar t put yourself in the place of th< poet as lie makes the changes. MIOHAEL.—Page 41. Much has been said of the slurs and ridicule heaped upon Wordsworth because of his simple style and homely characters. In the English Bards and Scotch R^.vinoera, Byron iixlulges in a uoarse and rather ^vitty sketch of the poet, with a pointed allusion to the Idiot Boy, ending thus: " So close on each pathetic part he dwells. And each adventure so sublimely tells, That all who view the ' idiot in his glory,' Conceive the bard the hero of the story. " Wordsworth despised rank, (at least in his earlier days) and his defence is well expressed by Coleridge when he says, " I honour a wise and virtuous man without ref« ence to the presence or absenc'c of artifi* . cial advantages.' In Michael and in poema of similar motive, Words- worth owes much to Bumo. whom he greatly loved and heartily admired : he had the power, pre-eminent in Burns of touching the hearts of the refined classes with a powerful sense of their common humanity, he "astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice-piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them to tremble— nay, to tremble visibly — beneath the fearless touch of natural pathos." " Is there not th^; fifth act of a tragedy in every death-bed, though it were a peasant's, and a bed of heath?" exclaims Carlyle. Wordsworth had the eye of sym- pathy which makes the Story of Michael as great md significant as the story of Macbeth, and while we may trust that Shakespeare had the larger sounder judgment in attaching more importance to the piominent and, powerful, yet we must revere the grand democratic spirit of Words- worth, Bums, Coleridge, and Carlyle. A Pastoral poem is a narrative of simple rustic life, containing des- criptions of nature, and of the manners and morals of peasants. 4. "Oreen-head Ohyll."-Ghyll or gill, a ravine. ■pppc^ 24S WOBDSWOBTa. 7. "pastoral.** — In its radical ,13. " kites.**— A fierce bird of prey. 82. "led.*— Ta'e....led. 38. " a few natural hearts." — Those who cannot like Wordsworth for his positive merits, should remember his negative merits : the mean- ness, the sensationalism, the nasty sentiment, the bad taste, the unnatu- ral forced literary or bookish point of view are all absent. 46. "bodily flraune" — Contrasted with wwmi in line 46. 47. " frugal." — Not self-indulgent, requiring little pleasure. 63. "subterraneous. "—In the valley. 68-62. These lines are a harmonious symbol of his iuner life ; " the traveller " is a less heroic type. 71. "hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear"— His own acts. 76. '• Those fields, those hills." — See eight lines above. W. " The one."— One of them. " cleanly." — ^They were habitually clean. " duly." — As regularly as the darkness required ib " utensil." — L. uten8Uis=G.t for use. "uncounted." — ^The lamp by long association had become a friend, a character. 123. "with objects." — ^The worst misery is total lack of interest in things : but this never comes to these self-respecting people. 125. " by the light of this old lamp."— The lamp may be fancied to stand as a sjrmbol of constant virtue, oltl-fashioned and far from gay, but trustworthy : it was a benign influence in the neighbourhood. 130. Worthy of Swinburne in imitative power. 131. "Easedale, Dunmail-Raise." — Ten miles south of Keswick. 142-169. What is the terror of old age from which Luke saved Michael ? I6U-I77. To say that this passage is not poetical is to beg the whole question of Wordsworth's claims : Wordsworth himself was a man of great intellectual power, and as regards academic culture and Uterary associations "in the foremost files ; " yet he renounced the unquestioned fame of works like the Ode to Duty and Lcwdamia, to glory in works like Michael. 180. Criticize. 181. " coppice>" — A thicket of brushwood. 101. 116. 117. 120. M0TB8. 249 217. "but**— ^nlya. \^ 226. "patrimonial." — Tlie continuity of the family adds greatly to the effect when the Buccossion is disturbed. 229-242. This struf^gle with doubts, murmurs and un charitableness, makes Michael bnman : but his triumph makes him noble. The refined morality of line 242 is a greater dignity than wealth or rank. Words- worth means to tell us. 260. " Parish-boy." — Depending on charity. 269. "monies/' — Expresses Isabel's feelings accurately. 288. "the Boy should go to-night"— Why? 326. " melancholy." — Transferred epithet. ^ 356. " in US." — In our casa. 364. Michael has as deep a sense of family continuity as an earL 380. "It looks as if." — The land was so identified with its owner that his imagination could grapple with no other condition. 389. " Nay, Boy" — Dramatic touch : what does it suggest ? 393. This most pathetic line owes much to the cont,ext. 412. How is innocence a cause of energy in good deeds t 415. What were the parts of this covenant ? 417. "I shall love thee to the last.**— He was eighty-four. 449-461. Coleridge admired Wordsworth for the number and beauty ' of his aphorisms. 455. Cf . line 46. 460. "inheritance." — Appositive. 467. " never lifted up a single stone."— What does this tell in- directly ? 469. " that." — Cf. line 94, where the clumsy expression **iheone " to which this clumsy demonstrative refers, is used. 476. " a stranger's hand" — Michael's worst fears in regard to his boy and his estate are realized. HEART-LEAP WELL.— (1800)— Page 56. Of the origin of this story Wordsworth says : " My sister and I had passed the place a few weeks before in our wild winter journey from Lockburn on the banks of the Tees, to Grasmere. A peasant whom we met near the spot told us the story so far as concerned the name of the mimii D liE38BBS9BiHHBHBiHV 250 WORDSWORTH. M well and tfie hart, and pointed out the stones. Both the stones and the well are objects that can easily be missed ; the tradition by this time may be extinct in the neighbourhood : the man who related it to us was very old." Scott's '* Lady of the Lake " appeared ten years later, and the firot caato of it gives a description of the chase quite different from Wordsworth's. But Oowper in The Task, (Book lU.) had spoken bitterly against the — *' Detested sport, That owes its pleasures to another's paui.'' Bums bad wept over a field-mouse or a wounded hare : and many writers of sensibiL'ty, notably Bishop Butler, had spoken of the kindness men owe the lower animals. Butler and Agassiz both speak of a possible im- mortality for animals. While many poets warn us not to be unkind to helpless creatures, Coleridge takes a more positive strain in the story o* the murdered' albatross, and in a noble and popular passage says, " He prayeth well, who loveth wall Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best All thincrs both great and small." And it is this universal love that makes men like Bums seem the best of men. 12. ** falcon.**— The bird is also u. hunter. 14. ** rodt" — Band of hunters. 14. " this mornmg." — Vivid use of adjective <7iw. 18. "veering." — Changing direction ; cf. vibraie. 22. " chid."— Chide sometimes means to cause to come or go. 23. "With suppliant gestures."— Not suitable diction. •28. "not like an earthly Chase-"— Why I 32. " what death he died."— How. 61. ** rods," also written roodU : five yards and a half. 74. Does this stanza exaggerate ? 97. "And I to this would add anotner tale— The unconscious humour of this appendage suggests the *• happy happy liver " of the 8ky-Lark. 100. "To freeze the blood I have no ready arts."— "I could a tale unfold whose lightest word, would harrow up thy aonl, freexe thy young blood," NOTES. 251 120l The verbosity of this part throws doubt upon the opinion that there was *' matter for a second rhyme." ISO. "finest palace," etc. — Is this stated as a fact? 140. '* And blood cries ont for blood." — la this a genendization by the shepherd ? 146. "lui« been."— Cf. wm. 148. "my simple mind." — Is this the language a shepherd would use of himself ? What different meanings has simple t The last £ve stanzas of the shepherd's speech are imbued with tender imagination; is Wordsworth false to nature in this? Compare the characters of Adam and Gorin, (Shakespeare's As You Like Ft, Act 11, So. 3, and Act 11% Sa 2), with the characters of Wordsworth's peasants. 167-170. Are these lines intentionally or carelessly vague and peri- phrastic ? 177. ** the milder day." — " The larger heart, the kindlier hand." 180. "what she shows, and what conceals."— What nature in an angry mood makes cleai* as well as what she charitably covers over. FIDELITY.— Page 62. If tha poet had chosen to call this pv^^m by a less didactic title, it might be more popular. There is something natural and pleasing about the order in which the details of the first stanza are told. The descrip- tion In stauzu. three and. four is 30 picturesque, simple and withaJ. artistic, that one wishes the poet had given himself over to censucos Terse, and left moralizing to others. However, the lofty sentx^aent of the last stanza of the poem tieems to justify Wordsworth's method. The general regaird for the dog as a faithful companion of man, calls for poetical expression, and most, people who are not " too clever by half," will bks this simple poem on account of the sincere admiration it expresses for the hero. Coleridge says of Fidelity: *' The poem is for the greater part written in language as unraised and naked as any perhaps in the two volumes." He ci^ attention to the superior style of stanza four, and of the lasli half of the last stanza. Comparing these parte with the rest of th« work, he exclaims : '* Can any candid and intelligent mind hesitate ia determining whic^. of these best represents the tendency and natir* :, i 262 WORDSWORTH. character of the poet's genius?" He conoladea that Wordsworth is sadly cramped by his theories. 27. " cheer."— Sign of life. 29. " sympliony." — Echoing harshly. 51. " whose." — Cf. " a triangle toJiose aides." Critioize the versification. a V a THE LEECH-GATHERER.— Page 65. Of this poem Mr. R. H. Hattoo says it treats of Wordsworth's favoarite theme — 'the strength which the human heart has, or ought to have, to contain itself in adverse circumstances." Again he says, " The Leech-Gatherer ha 3 much leas of buoyancy than the earlier poems, and sometimes here and there the stateliness of the later style." Coleridge finds in this work all the characteristic defects and merits of its author. Wordsworth in a characteristic note says : "I describe myself as having been exalted to the highest pitch of delight by the joyousness and beauty of Nature ; and then as depressed, even in the midst of those beautiful objects, to the lowest dejection and despair. A young poet in the midst of the happiness of Nature is described as overwhelmed by the thoughts of the miserable reverses which have befallen the happiest of all men, namely, poets. I think of this till I am so deeply impressed with it that I consider the manner in which I am rescued from my dejec- tion and despair almost as an interposition of Providence. A person reading the poem with feelings like mine will have been awed and con- trolled, expecting something spiritual or supernatural. , What is brought forward? A lonely place, * a pond, by which an old man was, far from all house or home : ' not stood, nor sat, but was — the iigui'e presented in the most naked simplicity possible. The feeling of spirituality or Bupernaturalness is again referred to as being strong in ray mind in this passage. How came he here ? thought I, or what can he be doing ? I then describe him, whether ill or well is not for me to judge with perfect confidence ; but this I can confidently affirm, that though 1 believe God has given me a strong imagination, I cannot conceive a figure more im- pressive than that of an old man like this, the survivor of a wife and ten children, travelling alone among the mountains and all lonely places, carrying with him his own forlitude, and the necessities which an unjust state of society has laid upon him. You speyik of his speech as tedious. Everything is tedious when one does not read with the feelings of the 1 r( a w b« re efi m< of fol to NOTES. 253 author. . . . It is in the character of the old man to tell his story, which an impatient re^ader must feel tedious But, good heavens ! snch a figure, in such a place ; a pious, self-respecting, miserably infirm and pleased old man, telling such a tale ! " 8. "Stock-dove." — A wild-pigeon. 9. " Jay." — A handsomely coloured bird with a crest. 9. " Magpie>" — Allied to the Jays. 25. " from the might," etc — The excess brings refiction, 46. " Ghatterton." — Thomas Chatterton died by his own hand in 1770, aged seventeen. He pretended to have discovered in a muniment room at Bristol, the Death of Sir Charles Bavidin, and other poems, by a monk, Thomas Rowley : these raised a controversy. 49. " Following his plow." — Read Carlyle's Essay on Bums. 50. "By our own spirits are we deified."— The power is from within, not from circumstances. 52. "despondency and madness."— Is this view Wordsworth's belief, or a dramatic expression of a mood ? 56. "untoward** — Vexatious. 59. "that ever wore grey hairs." — What characteristic defect? 60. "As a huge Stone."— How is this comparison justified and rendered credible ? 62. " the same." — What peculiarity of diction ? 65. " Sea-beast." — Why this simile within a simile ? 78. " as a Cloud." — Note all the points of likeness. 137. "blended,"- Observe the change of movement and of emotion eflfected by the double rhyme. What is the effect of ending a stanza of pentameters with a hexa- meter ? Beoareful not to speak too positively of the intellectual value of sounds. Indicate the stanzas that seem to you least poetical and most poetical. *4 TO THE DAISY. -Page 73. Wither, a poet ridiculed by Pope in the Dunciad, is the author of the following verses, which Wordsworth prefixed as a keynote to this song to the Daisy : ■aniMlHiii 254 WORl>SWORftt. By a daisy whose leaves spread Shnt when Titan goes to bed, Or a shady bush or tree, , She could more infuse in me Than all Nature's beauties can In some other wiser man. Her divine skill tanght me this. That from everything I saw I could some instruction draw, And raise pleasure to the height Through the meanest object's sight. By the murmur of a spring, Or the least bough's rustling. It will be observed that the lines are very much in the spirit of our author, and suggest the conclusion of his great Ode. This poem ofiFers an example of the general truth concerning Words- worth's relation to nature — he was less the poet who describes than the interpreter : the daisy is not merely a sweet little flower, but it is a local habitation aud a name, a symbol for those airy nothings that lived in hia own spirit. 8. ** Nature's love partake of thee."— Love nature through this flower. 18. " morrice train.**— (Sp. mori, =moori8h.) A grotesque holi- day dance. 26. " mews.'* — ^A confined place. 27. "wanton Zephyrs"— The amorous west- wind. 31. " thy fame-" — Chaucer's verses to the daisy are beautiful. 38. "fare".— To fare at length = to be stretched on the grass. Of. Gray's Ekffj/. 45. " apprehension."— Not a happy choice of word. 62. " by dews opprest."— " Dew-drops are the gems of morning, but the tears of mournful eve." 76. "lover of the sun "— />aMy=i>ay'« eye. 77. " leveret."— A young hare. N<»ris. 355 sf our (Tords- Ein the i local in hia h this J holi- Cf. rning, TO THE SAME.— Page 76. This is not the second but the third song of this series. Matthew Arnold omits the second from his selections : it is interesting to compare it with the other two, in order to judge whether the critic rejected it on account of inferiority : TO THE SAME FLOWER. With little here to do or see Of things that in the great world be, Daisy, again I talk to thee, For thou art worthy. Thou unassuming common-plaoe Of nature, with that homely face, And yet with something of a grace Which Love makes for thee ! Oft on the dappled turf at ease I bit and play with similes. Loose types of things through all degrees, Thoughts of thy raising ; And many a fond and idle name I give to tliee for praise or blame, As in the humour ot the game, While I am gazing. A nun demure of lowly port ; Or sprghtly maiden of Love's court, Li thy simplicity the sport Of all temptations ; A queen in crown of rubies drest ; A starveling in a scanty vest ; Are all, as seems to suit th<^ best, Thy appellations. A little Cyclops, with one eye Staring to threaten and defy, That uhought comes nejrt — and instantly The freak is over. The shape will vanish — and behold A silver shield with boas of gold, That spreads itself, some faery bold In fight to cover 1 t i 256 WORDSWORTH. I see thee glittering from afr Aud then thou art a pretty star | Not quite so fair as many are In heaven above thee, Yet like a star with glittering crest, Self -poised in air thou seem'st to rest ; — May peace come never to his nest Who shall reprove thee 1 Bright flower ! for by that name at last, When all my reveries are past, I call thee, and to that cleave fast ! Sweet silent creature. That breath'st with me in sun and air, Do thov . as thou art wont, repair My heart with gladness and a share Of thy meek nature I I TO A HIGHLAND GIRL.— Page 76. The author is full of enthusiasm for the beauty of a Highland lass whom he saw in a northerly excursion. One might fancy the motive of the piece to be nt-^rely an artistic portrait of the child, but there is too much of ** The homely sjrmpathy that heeds The common hfe our nature breeds," to admit of this opinion. While he takes perhaps a little too superior and scientific a relation to the girl to strike our sympathies deeply, there are proofs that he felt that touch of nature which makes the whole world kin. 6. "consenting-" — In radical sense : in harmony with her well-being. 11. "a qniet road" — In Sonnet XXV. Wordsworth says, "My little boat rocks in its harbour, lodging peaceably." Road has the stem- notion of riding; one meaning is a place where boats may ride at anchor. Sketch a picture (however rudely) indicating the position of each detail of this picture. 1.3. " together do ye seem."— The girl and her surroundings. 15-16. Notice the light, fanciful, and tender use of a sober imagination. 36. "seemline&a complete." — The pleasing grace of a good heart NOTEa 257 unsallied by any evil, and having the absence of restraint that Raphael admired in infants. 37. "about thee" — As if the charm were an illusion, a glamour, not assignable to her material being : this is the language of one enchanted. 38. "sucll as springs."— The passage has for its general notion: the girl could not speak English freely, but the very e£fort showed her beauty in a more interesting light. 60-61. "thee" — " your." — Which pronoun prevails in the poem ? 69. "her" — Memory. At seventy- three the poet writes that his prophecy that memory would preserve this picture for his pleasure had " through God's goodness been realized." Cf. line 70 Tintern Abbey, STEPPING WESTWARD.— Page 78. The beautiful interpretation of the greeting illustrates the poetio method : " In common things that round ns lie * Some random truths he can impart." 2. "westward." — Compare George Meredith's Earth's Preference, (page 108r line 4) ; also the Ode on Immortality, (page !)9, line 78). The east, in his poetic vocabulary signifies heaven from which toe come, toest- ward signifies toward our destiny. 3. "wildish."— Rather ill-directed. 11. " all."— Adv6rb. 14. "A sound of something without place or bound."— Suggest- ing a large abstract meaning. THE SOLITARY REAPER —Page 79. The date of this work is 1803, When Keats was seven years old this poem was written, and when Keats was eleven The Solitary Heaper was published. The similarity in tone, spirit and details between Keats' Ode to a Nightingale and this work is so obvious as to render their dates interesting. (See Chapter V.) 17. " Hebrides." — That is, lonely western isles. mmmimm mm 258 WORDSWORTH. I i f AT THE GRAVE OP BURNS.— Page 81. This touching tribute to the memory of Burns is written, in metre most strikingly reminding us of that poet : it is the metre of The Moun- tain Daisy itself, as well as of many of his other songs. There is some* thing paradoxical in Wordsworth's love of Burns, when we consider the vulgar estimate of the character of the latter which prevailed in the early part of this century. It is much to the credit of Wordsworth's insight that he was one of the first to recognize the greatness of soul of the plovnnan-poet. The noble essay on Bums by Carlyle, (written be- fore the prose of the great moralist had become irregular and eccen- ti'ic) is at once a charming piece of English and wonderful piece of critical sympathy : the followiug passage gives some idea of the view held ia common by Carlyle and our author : '* We had something to say on the public moral character of Bums ; but this also we must forbear. We are far from regarding him as guilty before the world, as guiltier than the average ; nay from doubting that he 7 1 less guilty than one of ten thousand. Tried at a tribunal far more rigid than that wliere the Plebiacita of common civic reputations are pronounced, he has seemed to us even there less worthy of blame than of pity and wonder. But the world is habitually unjust in its judg- ments of such men ; unjust on many grounds, of which this one may be stated as the substance : it decides, like a court of law, by dead statutes ; and not positively but negatively, less on what is done right, than on what is or is not done wrong. Not the fe,/ inches of deflection from the mathematical orbit, which are so easily measured: but the raiio of these to the whole diameter, constitixtes the real aberration. This orbit may be a planet's, its diameter the breadth of the solar system ; or it may be a city hippodrome ; nay the circle of a ginhorse, its diameter a score of feet or paces. But the inches of deflection only are measured : and it is assumed that the diameter of the ginhorse, and that of the planet, will yield the same ratio when compared with them ! Here lies the root of many a blind, cruel condemnation of Bumses, Swifts, Rous- seaus, which one never listens to with approval. Granted, the ship comes into harbor with shrouds and tackle damaged ; the pilot ia blame- worthy ; he has not been all- wise and all-powerful : but to know how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the Globe, or only to Ram&gate and the Isle of Dogs. ** With our readers in general, with men of right feeling anywhere, we are not required to plead for Burns. In pitying admiration he lies enshrined in all our hearts, in a far nobler m lusoleum than that one of f MOTES. 259 |i3 marble ; neither will his Works, even as they are, pass away from the memory of men. While the Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of Thought, bearing fleets of traffick- ers and aasiduoud pearl-fishers on their waves ; this little Valclusa Foun- tain will also arrest cur eye : for this also is of Nature's own ami most cunning workmanship, bursts from the depths of the earth, with a full gushing current, into the light of day ; and often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines 1 " 23. "glinted."— Read Burns' Vhe Daifsy. 29. "be"— Old indicative form. 30. " soon." — See last stanza of The Daisy, by Bums. 31. "The prompt, the brave." — Quick and violent champion of freedom. 40. "the current."— Of life. 42. "Oriffel."— Near Skiddaw. 43. " Skiddaw."— Hill four miles north of Keswick. 46. "diversely." — Divers (some times spelled diverse) took accent on first. 48. " the main fibres." — The essential respects. 63. "poor Inhabitant below." — The quotation touchiugly applied to its author. (See The Bard's Epitaph), 66. " sate."— sat ; rarely sftte. 66. " gowans. " — Gaelic for flower ; espeoially the daisy. 69. "of knowledge graced by fancy what a rich repast."— Delightful conversation. 77. " devious." — From L. de and via. 86. " ritual." — Music of a noble ceremony. 87. "Seraphim." — Cherubs are infant angels. Read Campbell's beautifrl Ode to the Memory of Burns : one- stanza reads : ** 0 deem not, 'midst this worldly strife, An idle art the poet brings : Let high Philosophy control, And sages calm, the stream of life, 'Tis he refines its fountain-springs, The nobler passions of the soul." 18 2f;o WORDSWORTH. i li THOUGHTS.— Page 84. The refineJ humility, the grace and aympathy of judgment shown in Wordsworth's estimate of the character of Burns, go far to prove that liuakin's opinion of him as helpful only to the sinless, was shallow and ill-considered. The poem is a climax in the radical sense of the word, a veritable ladder from the humble dwelling of Bums "to the gates of ITeaven," and the broad clear atmosphere of the last stauzas is reminiscent of Burns at his best. 6. " The Vision."— Read the poem by Bums. 17. " Where gentlest judgments may misdeem."— Where the utmost ohr.rity may be too harsh a judge. 40, " Luage." — His picture of Bums. 45. " shames the Schools." — Conventional poetry. TO THE CUCKOO.— Page 86. The pleasing power of the simp jt natural phenomena to arouse those recollections of early childhood which to him were intimations of another world, is set forth fully and grandly in his great Ode ; this little poem bears some such relation to the Ode on Intimations of Immortality, as Break, Break, Break, bears to the In Memoriam. 'J'he main outlines of the Ode are her* in miniature, and the elevation of the last stanza shows that mingling of the child-philosopher ami the student-philosopher which makes the ending of the Ode so obscurely impressive. In Arnold's Selections the following stanzas are added under the heading, Thti Cuckoo Again: Yes, it was the mountain Echo, Solitary, clear, profound, , Answering to the shouting Cuckoo, Giving to her sound for sound ! Unsolicited reply To a babbling wanderer sent ; , Like her ordinary cry, like but oh, how differeni;! Hears net also mortal life ? Ifear not we, unthinking creatures 1 Hlaves of folly, love, or strife — Voices of two different natures ? ;i ' 11 il NOTBS. 2fil Have not uw too? -yea, w > have Answers, and we know not whence ; Echoes from bi'yond the grave, Recognized iut . gence 1 Often as thy inward ear Catches uch rebounds, beware 1— Listen, ponder, hold them dear; ^ For of God, — of God they are. Wordsworth wrote a !>onnet to the same bird, and a poem entitled The Cuckoo at Lavema : uotb are interesting for comparison with the verses above. - 2. " New-Comer."—The l«rk, the cuckoo, and the swallow aru the birds of early spring. 29. "golden time." — Cf. virio'iary hourt lu line 13. 7 •» YARROW VISITED. -Page 87. The famoTiB ballad by Hamilton entitled The Braes of Yarrow^ may be found in Percy's Reliques, Second Series, Book III, Number 24. It was itself an imitation of "an old Scottish ballad on a similar subject, with the same burden to each stanza." The three poems on Yarrow by Wordswortii, were written r< apectively in the years 1803, 1814, and 1831 : they are the direct otfdpring of Hamilton's ballad, as will be seen by the allusions to it in the first of them. In the Mother country they are regarded with great favour, and indeed there is a repose, a strong unquestionable sense of beaut v, a sober right-minded joy in Yarrow VisUed, that makes one think of pictures of English landscapes. For comparison, and on account of their literary interest, the three poems shoud be read as a series. YARROW UN VISITED. (See the various Poems the Soene of which is laid upon the Banks of the Yarrow; in particular the exquisite Ballad of Hamilton, beg^nin^ " Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome Marrow 1" — ) Frou Stirling Castle we had seen The mazy For La unravelled ; Had trod the banks of Clyde, and Tay, And with the Tweed had travelled ; IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) /A '% W^., :/- u.. fM 1.0 I.I £ MS. 12.0 u. ^ i IL25 i 1.4 1.6 Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WnSTER.N.Y. 14510 (716) S72-4503 o^ ^ Tf^^ 262 W0BD6W0RTH. And when we came to aovonfoni, ^en said my *• tvinsorne Marr7e will downward with the Tweed. Nor turn aoide to Yarrow. "There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs Both lying right before us J ' Axid Dryborough where with chiming Tweed The Lmtwhites sing in chorus ; There's pleasant Tiviot-dale, & land Made bUthe with plow and harrow : Why throw away a needful day To go in search of Yarrow ? "What's Yarrow but a River bare, That ghdes the dark hills Under ? There are a thousand such elsewhere As worthy of your wonder." -^^ange words they seemed of slight and scorn, My True-love sighed for sorrow ; And looked me in the face, to think I thus could speak of Yarrow J "Oh I green," said I, "are Yarrow's Hohns, And sweet is Yarrow's flowing I Fair hangs the apple frae the rook, But we wiU leave it growing. O'er hilly path, and open Strath, We'U wander Scotlaml thorough ; But, thougn so near, we will not turn Into the Dale of Yarrow. KOtBS. " Let beeves and home-bred kine partaLe The sweets of Burn-mill meadow ; The swan on still St. Mary's Lake Float donble, swan and shadow ! We Mrill not nee them : will not go, To-day, nor yet to-morrow ; Enough if in our hearts we know There's such a place as Yarrow. *' Be Yarrow Stream unseen, unknown } It must, or we shall roe it : We h^-ve a vi&ion of our own ; Ah I why bhould we undo it T The treasured dreams of times long past, Well keep them, winsome Marrow * For when we're there, although 'tis fair, 'Twill be another Yarrow. J»63 «< 'm" If Care with freezing years should coma. And -vrandering seem but folly, — Shonld we be loth to stir from home. And yet be melancholy ; Should life be dull, and spirits low. Twill soothe us in our sorrow, That earth has something yet to show, The bonny Hohns of Yarrow I " YARROW REVISITED. [Thp following Stanzas are a memorial of a day passed with Sir Walter Scott, and other Friendb visiting tlie Banks of the Yarrow under his guidanoe, immediately b^ore his departure from Abbotsford for Naples.] Thx gallant Youth, who may have gained, Or seeks, a *' Mrinsome Marrow," Was but an infant in the lap When first I looked on YarroTr ; Onoo more, by Newark's Oastle-gate ^ Long left without a warder, I stood, looked, listened, and with Thee, Great Minstrel of the Bordar 1 I f » i .." I I i f i i ■■ Grave thoughts ruled wide on that sweet day, Their dignity installing In gentle bosoms, while sere leaves Were on the bough, or falling ; But breezes played, and sunshine gleamed— The forest to embolden ; Reddened the fiery hues, and shot Tranpparence through the golden. For busy thoughts the Stream flowed on In foaming agitation ; And slept in many u crystal pool For quiet conteraplation : No public and no private care The freebom mind enthralling. We made a day of happy hours, Our happy days recalling. £risk Youth appeared, the Morn of youth. With freaks of graceful foUy — life's temperate Noon, he" ' ^ber Eve^ Her Night not melancholy ; Past, present, future, all appeared In harmony united, Like guests that meet, and some from far. By cordial love invited. And if, as Yarrow, through the woods And down the meadow ranging. Did meet us with unaltered face, Though we were changed and changing ; If, then, some natural shadows spread Our inward prospect over. The soul's deep valley was not slow Its brightness to recover. Eternal blessings on the Muse, And h©r divine employment I The blameless Muse, who trains her Sons For hope and calm enjoyment ; ''«™'"^'''^^'^r'^T''?''"'s'^!'!^"if*w"'"»^IWiwiPi«if|Bpiip;i«iPip^ NOTES. Albeit sickness, lingering yet. Has o'er their pillow brooded j And Care waylays their steps— a Sprite Not easily eluded. For thee, O Scott 1 compellel to change Green Eildon hill and Cheviot For warm Vesuvio's vine-clad slopes. And leave thy Tweed and Teviot For mild Sorrento's breezy waves ; May classic Fancy, linking With nat- ve Fancy her fresh aid, Preserve thy heart from sinking ! 0 ! while thoy minister to thee. Each vying with the other, May Health return to meUow Age With Strength her venturous brother ; And Tiber, and each brook and rill Renowned in song and story, With un}m8;';pned beauty shine, Nor lose one ray of glory 1 For Thou, upon a hundred streams. By tales of love and sorrow. Of faithful love, undaunted truth. Hast shed the power of Yarrow ; And streams unknown, hills yet unseen, Wherever they invite Thee, At parent iture's grateful call, With gladness must requite Thee. A- gracious welcome shall be thine, Such looks of love and honour As thy own Yarrow gave to me When first 1 gazed upon her ; Heboid what I had feared to see, Unwilling to surrender Dreams treasured up from early days. The holy and the te^ider. 265 ''W..Rf»' ESS fmpm mmm wm 266 WORDSWOBTB. And what, for this frail world, were all That mortals do or suffer, Did no responsive harp, no pen, Memorial tribute offer T Yea, what were mighty Nature's self? Her features, could they win us, Unhelped bj" the poetio voice T^at hourly speaks within us ? Nor deem that localized Romance Plays false with our affections ; Unsanctifies our tears — made sport For fanciful dejections : Oh, no 1 the visions of the past Sustain the heart in feeling life as she is — our changeful Life, With friends and kindred dealing. Bear witness, Ye, whose thoughts that day In Yarrow's groves were centred ; Who through the silent portal arch Of mouldering Newark e4ter'd ; And olomL the winding stair that once Too timidly was mounted By the " kst Minstrel," (not the last I) Ere he his Tale reooohted. Flow on for ever, Yarrow Stream I Fulfil thy pensive duty, Well pleased that future Bards should chant For simple hearts thy beauty ; To dream-light dear while yet unseon. Dear to the common sunshine, And dearer still, as now I feel, To memory's shadowy moonshine I Button says : " Mr. Arnold places all the rsally first-rate work of Wordsworth in the decade between 1798 and 1808. I think he is right here. But I should put Wordsworth's highest perfection of style mnch nearer tiie later date than the earlier." In a contrast of the eiwliMt with the latest TarroWt Hutton shows us with much skill the ohangea NOTES. 267 that had come orer Wordswortli's style in twenty-eight years. The fint poem is self-contained, swift, bare and rapid, the third is slow and Bweet, rich, free and mellow, and gives no anch impression of jwwerful repression as the first. The criticism may be extended to apply to m great deal of the poet's earlier and later work. In the Yarrow UnviiUed^ the poet and his sister decide not to visit the famous stream for fear their lovely picture of it got from what they had read and imagined ehould be injured by the sc iie itself. The poet first visited Yarrow ii. the company of the Ettrick shepherd, Hogg, author of that sweetest of ballads, Kilmeny : the second poem records the impressions of this occasion. The third poem is *' a memorial of tLe very last visit Scott (in company with Wordsworth) ever paid, not to Yarrow only, but to any scene in that land which he had so loved and glorified." Just as the first is strong and almost humourous, the second strong and sweet, so the third it sweei; and sad, and the three have a unity which suggests that Wordsworth's life gave vital unity to all his work. 6. "An image that hath perished 1" The imaginary Yarrow of his first poem. 15. " Saint Mary's Lake."— In Yarrow UnrnsUedt he says : ''The swan on still Saint Mary's liake Float double, swan and shadow i " * This is the couplet that Scutt misquoted by pluralisdng swan. \Vords> worth corrects him, and adds bhat the swan with no companion but its own reflection is a symbol of the utter loneliness of the scene : but Scott was misled by taking float for an assertive word in the plural, whereas it depends on let. Wordsworth's note concludes with this sentence: "I have hardly ever known any one except myself who had a true eye for nature — one that thoroughly understood her meanings and her teachings." 27. "the famous Flower of Yarrow Vale"— The poet w showing interest in the leg nds of the place ; that they were not so familiar to him as to Scott is shown by using an expression to denote the youth who was kUled, which was regularly applied not to the youth but to the lady. 33. "The Water-wraith."— Mr. Rolfe quotes from an old Yarrow ballad: !. =98= ssi-m ■I 26d WORDSWOKTH. I I " Scarce was he gone, 1 r .w his ghost ; It vanished with a shriek of sorrow ; Thrice did the water-wraith ascend And gave a doleful groan through Yarrow." 57. Newark's Towers." — A castle on the banks of the Yarrow near Selkirk, made famous by Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. Wordsworth uses some pet thoughts again tmcl again. Lines 75*78 make one think of " the light that never was ;" and the last three linea of the poem remind one of the conclusion of The Highland OirL TO A SKYLARK.— Page 90. In the sympathy bred by his love of nature, the poet oontrasta the happy elevation of the bird with his own lowly lot, and aspires to heavenly joys and triumphs ; but reflection comes to his aid, and instead of feeling disappointed when his dream is seen to be an illusion, hc^ determines to take the fact of the bird's joy, not as a call to present happiness, but as a promise of future raptures. 21. " thou would'st be loth to be such a traveller as I. "—This expression suffers from some confusion, it probably means that the lark would not willingly plod as he must, but the concessive clause before clashes with the meaning. TO THE SAME.— Page 91. In Palgrave's Golden Treasury this poem stands immediately before TTie Skylark, by Shelley. This juxtaposition suggests the likeness and the unlikeness of the poems and the poets. Wonlsworth's lines reveal a grt at joy in contemplating the biwl of morning ; his sober imagination tiiinks out the bird's thoughts, feels its emotions with tender insight and poetic freshness, endows the gentle creature with a soul and makes it the emblem of lofty spiritual aspira- tion : the romantic nightingale sufifers by comparison with this bird of light and truth : the moralist cannot Conclude this perfect lyiic without < a homely reference to the instincts of wisdom. The moral is worthy and apposite, but a trifle prosy, in as much as readers who enjoy the first sixteen linefe would scarcely need the last two. Yet this is Words- worth's method faithfirily adher ; no bit of nature is so valuable as an object of pleasure to the senses ;uid the imagination thut it has not a higher value as a spiritual symbol, or even a moral symbol. ■i*i iJbtB^. ^«d Shelley's Skylark is less the voice of % man than the glorious outburst of the bird itself translated into English verse, and scarcely either gaining or losing by the change : it is harmonious madness and upon it iogio, to say nothing of morality, has about as much claim as upon the lark's own song : we care no more for the intellectual qualities of it than for the meaning of an Italian song : wherever sound and sense clash, sense stands gracefully aside, and beautiful sound prevails. J% well known critic, the Professor of Logic in the University of Aberdeen, finds the poem wild and lacking ii^ precision of thought ; This would seem to be its great charm, would it not, when one considers the harmony of style and subject matter. Critics have been found with so little fueling for poetic effects as to lind fault with T/ie Cloud on account of its cease- less changing of comparisons ; but no doubt they would think badly of nature herself for the fickleness of her clouds. What has a poet to do with profound lessons when writing; an inspired ode to a skylark ? Those who answer — nothing, he should give himself up to an intoxicating beauty, are disciples of Shelley : but whoever replies, beauty finds its perfect work only as the hand-maiden of right living, are Words- worthians. 8. "the last point of vision." — ^The lark wheek npwarti in a diminishing spiral curve, as if climbing to heaven by a circular stair case : on the top of this imaginary conical tower the bird pauses to flood the morning earth with song : frequently the bird is invisible, (having passed ^he point where it subtends the necessary angle for visibility) while its Strong melodious voice is easUy audible. 10. ** a never-failing bond." — This bird appears to have forgotten mundane concerns ic its ecstasy of worship, but in fact he is no mere ascetic, for on the ground far below is a little nest, (often in the imprint of a horse's hoof or a similar depression) containing his little feathered offspring, usually four or five in number. It is his love for these as much as his gratitude for sunlight and glorious skies that prompts his music, though one might fancy him to disregard the leafy earth and all therein. 16. ** A privacy of glorious light is thine."-— This fine paradox suggests the isolation of great and elevated minds, and strikes one as % trifle sabjeotive. 17. The divine nightingale is described by Keats in just the maimer to set forth Wordsworth's meaning. ( Vide Chapter V.) '* What do the first vtro stanxas contribute towards bringing out the main idea ? " 270 WORDSWORTH. ODE TO DUTY.— Pare 95. Bein/r good now not by dcniy;n but merely through habit, I desire U> become able not only to do right but to do nothing that is nut ri^'ht. Horace's Ode to Fortune [0 Diva Oratvm, /, S5), and Gray's Ode to AdiJet'nty are the poems upon whiih the poet tells lis he modelled the Ode to Du*y. While the three odes have a general resemblance, both in the calm dignity and thoughtful ardudr of their matter, and in a corre« fipondiug regularity and seriousness of form, the differences are quite marked. The great sane nobility of the polished pagan shows no touch of levity where levifcy would be forced, and the seriousness of Horace has the pathos of a cheerful writer, a pathos free from suspicion of mere . dramatic effect. " Before thee stalks stern Fate, who joys to bear In iron hand ihe wedge — the spikes so dire," he says, addressing Fortune. His cynical view appears in the allusion ** white-robed Faith, so seldom found," and the ode ends in a prayer for the success of Roman arms, embittered by despair of Roman virtue and religion: ** Our iron age, well worthy of the name, What has it left undared I — when made a pause in guilt I *2r Whose altar spared, by piety restrained I " The Ode to Adversity is a link between the other two ; there is hardly a sentiment that Horace might not have fslt ; even the language is more classical than modem, the opening line, ** Daughter o? .Tove, relentless power," being a keynote of the style j yet, as will be best seen from the conclud- ing and most elevated stanza, there is not lacking in this piece a modem spirit of love and foygivenesa rarely met with in the ancient writings. In versification ihe resemblance between the two English poems will be observed : << Thy form benign, Oh goddess, wear, Thy milder influence impart. Thy philosophic train be there To soften, not to wound my heart. The generous spark extinct revive, Teacn me to love, and to forgive. Exact my own defects to scan. What others are to feel, and know myself a Man." not KOTES. mmm 271 To praise the Ode to Dttty is m needless as to praise Shakespeare's plays. Vet there is a clanger that one may overlook some of its great qualities through enthusiasm over the others. The acuteness and com* prehensiveness of intellect, which diaws a clear line between freedom and mere license, and finds perfect liberty in a proud submission, the goodness of heart and will which accepts the implied vestrictions with enthusiastic cheerfulness, the vigour of imagination which sees the universal law at work among those young- eyed cherubs the stars of heaven, the poetry that personifies the abstraction and clothes it with magnetic beauty, and withal the humility, the sweetness and light, the virility of this poem give it a rank that seems to us unassailable from even the most remote and dissimilar points of view, so that one can imagine Shakespeare, Horace or Plato reading it with as great pleasure as Lowell or Matthew Arnold. 2. "Stern Daughter of the Voice of God"— Compare from the Ode to Adversity "daughter of Jove" and "stern, rugged nurse." The appropriateness of the expression *'of the voicf of God" will be seen when ono reflects that the Christian view of the Deity would for- bid the expression precisely analogous to Gray's. Voice means expreMtd toill, Daughter is required for person itication. Observe the economy of the order which gives us the concrete image in the first line and the ab- stract interpretation.in the second. 16. " kindly impul'.Se. " — Coming from inborn virtue, 24. " this creed" — That right instincts are sufficient guides. 38. "unchartered freedom" — Boys are happier under rational discipline than un/estrained. 48. " the StaXfl" — If a star were to violate a physical law it would produce untold disaster ; the comparison is not meant to be strictly scientific, of course. A law is merely a generalized statement of facts, not an edict that may be disobeyed. Whether or not man has free-will, the stars have none. 49. "fresh and strong." — The notion th.-.t perpetual youth is the reward of right living is common in poetry, and, though discouraging perh&ps to virtuous age, is pleasing and romantic. How often good old men call themselves boys. Read Oliver . Wendell Holmes on " The Boys." 66. 'the spirit of self-sacriflce" — The feeling that by not claim- ing his rights he was rewarded by greater rights. It has been said that no man has A right to claim all his rights. 272 WORDSWOBTH. ODE ON INTIMATIO;^S OP IMMORTAUTY.— Page 97. "To the attentive and competent reae recommended to faiilt, as more than an demjtnt in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear in mind that^ though the idea is not advanced in revelation, there is nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an analogy in its favour. Aooordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the popular orM4« <^ I «f "^™^"''»W^!P"'TW"PPHP^«'i^"«'" NOTES. 275 many natious, and, among all persons acquainted with classic literature, is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. Arohimodea said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon tc rest hii machine. Who has not felt the sume aspirations as regards the world of his own mind ? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the ' Immortality of the Smtl,' / took hokl of the notion of pre-existence as having ^sufficient foundation in humanity for atUhoriang me to make for my purpose thp. beat use of it I eotUd cut a poet." The italics are oura, and tlie last three words are especially emphatic Of course the fact that the poet acknowledg; m the notion of pre-existonca to be a mere speculation does not answer .\ mold's criticism, but to re- member the fact is to be in a better pos ion for treating the author fairly. Arnold is a tenible critic, he brings the form of a poem into comparison with the chaste perfection of Greek art and the substance of it into comparison with what he conceives to be absolute and eternal truth. He judges this piece to be beautiful but to be lacking in that absolute and established truthfulness which would make it a poem of the highest order. It is not expedient here to argue this judgment, tut in order to account for the strange dififerences of opinion among the ablest judges as to the value of its didactic import, it is only necessary to say that Matthew Arnold's views of truth were, in the respects that make this ode important, so far from those of many other critics, that agreement was out of thp question : and it may be confidently asserted that if no work can stand as great poetry which is founded on beliefs concerning other states of life not held by Matthew Ajniold, some very famous poems muat lose ground. The line of thought in the poem is somewhat as follows : ( 1 ) The poet laments his loss of "that dream-like vividness and splendour " with which children see things about them : (2) Of course he sees that a rain- bow or a roae, the moon, water by starlight, sunshine, are beautiful, but their magic loveliness he cannot realize any more : (3) Under the in- fluence of a perfectly lovely day he shakes ofif the grief caused by the loss of his childhood gift of perceiving beauty intensely : (4) He almost convinces himself that he has as deep a sense of the beauty of things as he ever had, but he has to confess again that the visionary gleam is gone : (5) The fifth stanza (written two years later than the preceding four) begins to account for the loss of the '* dream-like vividness and splendour " of childhood eyes ; it states that iu passing from birth to Manhood, heaveu largely dies out of XkQ soul and the world takes its B-r-^ ,,aaag'BaaBKi / 274 W0RD8W0BTH place : (6) The world i*^ at enmity with our heavenly natare and aedncei us to lower pleasures and interests : (7) The poet shows how wordly affairs engross the being of the growing child, but declares that he only acts his parts — in the soul of his soul he is allied to divinity still : (8 He apostrophizes the child and asks him why he seeks to know the world when it would be true wisdom to rest content with the beautiful soul he brought from heaven | (9) He expresses deep joy that even the most c ucing wordly interests cm never quite destroy the divine nature in a man, >»nd that every man has at times 'utimations of his heavenly oiigin . (10) He again surrenders himself t ie influence of a perfect'y lovely day, (stanza 3) ^nd says that though be cannot feel the pure joy in beauty that he could before the world had claimed so much of him, yet he feel; that the centre of his soul is in sjrmpathy with that pure joy, and what he has lost of it is to some extent compensated b3'' a deep human sym- pathy, (which he could never have had without being to some degree worldly) and by a faith tiiat when the world at last loses it power, he will return to perfect bliss: (11) In conclusion, the poet weighs his gains and losses since childhood ; he has lost the glory and thv freshness of his childhood perceptions ; he has retained a great love of beauty and A prt found sympathy with heaven-bom childhood and nature ; he has gained through worldly experience, love, human sympathy, thought- fulness, dad perhaps, but a divine sort of melancholy, such as Milton loved t he does not strike a balance, hue concludes in a tone of cultured repose. * , The comprehension of this line of thought depends chiefly npon the clearness with which ono conceives the "celestial light" in which children bdhold the common objects around them : and how this magic way of seeiii^ disappears as years advance. It is probably one of those graces of nature that most fear to mention for fear of n: 3 a sym- pathetic ear j yet in Wordsworth it was so positively developed that be wrote of it as freely as if it had been the commonest faculty. 5. '*Tlie earth."— Probably meaning the soil itself— sinoe grass, trees, water, and common sights, are species of the same genus as ear^i. 9. "hath been."— What is the regular use of tba present perfect 12. " 1 now can see no more "— Se** ThUem Abbey, line, 85. "the tabor." — A small dmm used as ..a aooompaniment to a *'tiie fields of sleep"— This much-disputed phrase may mean *'slMpiQg fields," "the regioci of alebp, the early dawn." Itma^, NOTES. however, me«a the h»ppy, droway meadowi where the iheep we bruwsing And resting. •^7. " with the heart of May."— With springtime joy and life. 40. ** Shepherd-boy." — Who mj^y be supposed to be quite Aroadiaa and unworldly. 63. "In a thousand ▼alleys." — A strong bit of imaginative sym> pathy. 67. " a Tree*"— Who cannot recall a tree that ia dear because it was seen through the golden mists of childhood ? 63. "ths visionary gleam." — The magic light whioh makes that tree different fit om othturs. 7'i "Shades of the prison-house." — Claims of the world. 77. " the East " — Stars rise in the East ; hence the metaphor, where the soul is a star the time of birth is the east 78. ** Priest-" — Worshipper and exponent. 89. "foster-child." — Of noble origin, the child has earth for a foster-mother. 96. ** Mother's." — Has no reference to foster-mother Earth. 110. '*Actt>t>" — Compare the following speech from Shakespeare's A* Tou Like It: ** All the world's a stage. And all the men and women n^erely players i They have their exits and their entrances ; And one man in his time plays many parts. His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewliug and puking in the nurse's arms. And tiyen the whining sohool-bc^, with his satchel And shining morning faoe, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover. Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like a pard. Jealous in humor, suddea and quick in quarrel. Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's m^uth. And then the iustioe. In fur round belly with good capon lined, severe and beard of formal eyes out, Full of wise saws an i mod«ra instaaoes 276 woBjHm&tam. . «' « ■1 1 1 i i h « 'ii || It ] ! * r I / 5 , I 112. "personB."- And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts To the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His yoathfal hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice. Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Ijasv scene of all, - , That ends this strange, eventful history. In secoad childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." Derived from L. per, through, and aonare, to sound ; persona means a mask, used by an actor, the a actor, then any- one on the stage of life. Here, of course, persons means actors, 117. "whose exterior semblance doth belie thy sonl's im- mensity'"— Whose infant clay gives no indication of its high origin and endowments. 120. "thou Eye among the blind."— Read Earth's Prrfermee, chap. V. 139-142. I rejoice that in what is left of us after tho world has de- graded us there is something of divine vitality ; I rejoice that nature yet remembers what was so fleeting, that is our heavenly instincts. 146-150. In first mastering this stanza, bracket these lines, "Delight and liberty thanks and praise,*' and read *• Not indeed _ For that which is most worthy to be blest • •••••• But for those obstinate questionings," etc. Then in line 168 change but to and, so as to co-ordinate lines 151 and 158, thus : ' \ '* But for those obstinate questionings • t • « • • And for those first affections." 163. "Fallings from us, vanishings."— Wordsworth explains this satisfactorily ; he speaks of the opening stanza of We Are Seven, and adds: "But it was not so much from feelings of animal vivncity that my difficulty came as from a sense of the indomitableuoss of the c^irit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch atd Elijah, and almost to persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should b« translftted, in something of the iame way, to hdftyeo. With N0TX8. 27i^ ;: lading oongenial to this, I was often unable to think of external thinga as having external existence, and I ecooamnned with all that 1 raw as something not apart from, bat inherent in, my own immaterial natnre. Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to re< call myself from this abyss of idealism tc the reality. At that time I was afraid of such processes. In later periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason to do, a w:ibjagation of an opposite character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressec* in the lines — ' Obstinate questionings Of sense aud outward things, FalHngs from us, vanishings ; ' etc.** 156. Emphasize mortoL The material nature seemed hiuniliated in the presence of this high-born aoul. 173. "that immortal sea."— The soul comes, like'astar, from the east. It reaches the continent of human life and journeys westward^ on that land. To be far inland is to be at once far from birth, or old, and far from heaven, or worldly. 175. '* travel thither."— In imagination the soul of the worldly man may in a moment of supreme elevation have glimpses of his childhood and see the shore from which h'^ started inland, and from which children are now starting inland. 177. Worthy of Swinburne in faUne«s of harmony : read slowly, and with impressive orotund voice. 182. N:>tice the metrical changes in this pasMge. 197. " years that bring the pliilosophic mind-"— When thought takes the place of the divine, but unconscious, harmony of the infant soul. 201. "Yet."~StilL 202. " one delight."— Glorious perceptions of sensuous beauty. 203. " To live beneath your more habitual sway."— This line is not in apposition with one delight, but in contrast, and means — in order to live under the calming and ennobling influence of nature, not as the source of rapturous joy, but of serene and supporting strength. 211. "Another race hath been, and other palms are won."— He had grown up witli his generation ; some had died, some were sue* cessfni : this experieace had sobered his vision and destroyed the celes- Hal Ught, but had brought him another kind of vi^iou, the piejai^choly }^t of j^^t Qttltttre, <.mmm«f,m^»mnmm-i ; s"ings to his former self, yet feeling that the joy of the present moment will recur through years to come. " For although he is no longer his former self, no longer feels the same all-sufficuig passion for the mere external forms and colours of nature, is no longer filled with the same gladu^iss of mere animal life, yet Nature has not forsaken, but only fulfilled her kindly purpose t>o- wards her worshipper. Taught by her, he has reached a more serene and higher region ; higher because moro human in its interest, more thouqhtiful in its nature, more moral in its object. " And even if he had not reached this higher mood, none the less by sympathy with his sister could he feel the full joys of his former self. That she should now be as he was then is his wish and prayer ; for doubtless she too will be led by Nature, who never leaves her task in- complete, to the higher and more tranquil mood which is the ripe fruit ' of former flowers. And so, whatever sorrows might befall her in after tunes, both he and ehe could Mrith joy remember that Nature by such scenes and by his aid had wrought in her an unfuUng source of oass'd round. And solitude." 151. His sister Dorothy ended her days in mental darkness. THE FOUNTAIN.— Page 114. Even in this simplo dialogue we lecoguize the superiority of the dramatic form in the portrayal of character. Those who believe with Wordsworth that much true poetry is to be found in thu language of peasants when under the excitement of deep feeling will find poetry in ThB Fountain. If this character is t1u> Matthew of the poem of that uame he is a Boboolmaster of souk 1 ge school; and probably from what we can learn he resembles mutu or less closely some >ma8ter known by the poet. He tells us in one place that the characteriatica of Matthew ace drawn from more than one man. Kotm m 3, 4. Be careful to read the first two lines with one eye on the punctuation. 6- "Friends" — What had they in common ? 9. Why does this detail give ita name to the poem? 21. " dear old mac- " — Evidently not a Squeera. 35-38. DiBCuas Tennyson's saying that " a sorrow's crown of sorrows is rememWring happier things." 43-46. Compare Earth's Preference, Chapter V. 47. "But, we are pressed upon by heavy laws."—" The days of our strength are three score years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be four score years yet is their strength labour and sorrow." 60. "Because we have been glad before."— Because we live in the past, 54.. " It is the man of mirth." — He has the most to regret. 61. "I."— With playful emphasis. 66. " that cannot be." — His heart was past new ties, though warm and grateful. 71. "Leonard's rock," — Some local land-mark. PEELB OASTLK— Page 117. "Written soon after the death, by shipwreck, of Wordsworth's brother John. This poem may be profitably compared with Shelley's following it (in the Oolden Treasury). Each is the most complete expression of the innermost spirit of his art given by these great poets : — of that idea which, as in the case of the true painter (to quote the words of Reynold's), subsists only in the mind : the sight never beheld it, nor has the hand expressed it : it is an idea residing in the breast of the artist, which he is always labouring to impart, and which he dies at last without imparting." ^ Shelley's poem, to which Palgrave in this remarkable note alludes, is: THE POET'S DREAM. On a poet's lips I slept Dreaming like a love-adept In the sound his breathing kept ; Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, But feeds on the aerial kisses Of shapes that haunt thought's wiMemessea 9ad WORDSWORTH. He wiU watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow beea in the ivy-bloom, Ncr heed nor aee what things may be- But from these create he can Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of Immortality. ^ 1G-19. In this immortal stanza the poet seems to come very near the impossible, he all but enables us to grasp the indefinable halo that genius alone discerns about the objects it contemplates — that golden illusion that flits away from common sense to perfect wisdom. That which Ariel was in the Tempest, that which Coleridge felt and often tried to tell us ^ "A light, a fair luminous cloud Enveloping the Earth," and again, " Thie light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, This beautiful and beauty-making power," in another place "A swimiping phantom light," and in a fourth "A magic light," all these point to the same mystery. Other expressions of it occur in Wordsworth, notably in the Ode on Immortality : and of course it is what Sir Joshua tries to say in the note above ; but no one can say it— so that it may be generally known. 41. "Him whom I deplore." — His brother John. 53. "the Kind. "—Men. FRENCH REVOLUTION.— Page 119. There is a wonderful charm about this poem. It is as if one who had "been a glorious idealist, but no mere dreamer, had awaked from an illu- siou and had told his dream ; the reasonableness, the nobility, the ^ romance, the God-like enthusiasm for the best the world aspires to, are told vritb a poetic grace and a persuasive logic that go far to convert the reader, a^':ain8t his knowledge, into a Revolutionist of the year '89. The astounding skill of this as a defence of what he regards perhaps as ^ youthful error, is greatly enhanced by his own attitude in the poem, not the least lint of retraction or apology is evinced, bat rather he would, say, " Had I resisted the glamour of it, would I not have been less a man ? " Compare Coleridge's Ode to France where he says, '* O forgiva those dreams 1 *' NOTIS. 2S3 Ideal 4. "anziliara" — liberals everywhere. 6. "that da^hl."— Of freedom. 7*10. See Burke's Reflections on th« French Revolution. 38. "Utopia'"-- A work by Thomas More, desoribing an Rapnblic. 38. " sabterranean Fields"— Alludes to the Happy Valley of Reuaeku; and reminds one of Lytton's The Coming Race. See note on Michael, line 63. 39. "'iecreted Island."— Recalling Baoon's The New Atlantis, The workb mentioned are a few of the numerous " Ideal Common- wealths " outlined by eminent men ; others are Plato's Republic, Flu* taroh's Lycargue, Gampanella's Oity of the Sun, Hall's Mundua Alter et Idem. Montaigne deals with the same subject in his famous Euaye. 41-42. The sound statesmanlike tone of the last lines, shows that he has fundamentally right views of social reform. Compare Shakespeare's allusion to ideal republics in The Tempest, Act U, Sa 1. A POET'S EPITAPH.— Page 120. -4n this defenoe of the poet, Wordsworth represents the statesman, the lawyer, the doctor of divinity, the soldier, the doctor of medicine, the student of natural philosophy, and the student of moral philosophy, as approaching the poefs grave ; each in turn is dismissed as unworthy of the right even to pay his respects to the hallowed poetic dust : iSn- ally a poet approaches the resting-place of his brother bard, and is warmly welcomed and bid to come, go, and remain at will. In his enthusiasm to express the central idea — ^that the poet is the noblest of mankind — the author has neglected to lend grace to the form of his work, hence its stiffness and monotony, not to say narrowness, of tone : in these respects it does not bear comparison with Bums' Bard's Epitaph, upon which it is modelled : it is difficult to defend an inferior imitati ■IMIfll s ' V."^'*\ 286 WORDSWORTIt. rangement uhahedede fe fyo, while recent iontieti follow the ammgemcnt abbaabbaedoded (allowing, however, dome lati- tude in the arrangement of the e d rhymes). There ia another important dffference also, not so easy to define. The Shakeaperean aon- net usually oonaists of some poetical symbol and the application of it to the main thought: the symbol occupies the twelve lines of alternate rhyme, and the application the rhyming couplet at the end, so that one may usually get the main thought by merely reading this concluding couplet. The recent sonnets are different in this respect, the diviwion between the symbol and the application (when these occur) usually being at the end of the octave. Frequently, however, the octave explains the whole thought, while the aesUt is used for some quiet reflection npon that thought. The recent sonnets are modelled upon the Italian sonnet used by Milton. The er%mples chosen to illustrate tliese truths are chosen as striking examples of their classes, and as likely to illustrate in a pointed manner the changes already described. SHAKESPEARE'S THIRTIETH SONNET. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I snnmion up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste ; Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow. For precious friends hid in death's dateless night. And weep afresh love's long-since-cancelled woe. And moan the expense of many a vanish'd si>;ht : Then can I grieve at grievances foregone. And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad, account of fore-bemoaned moan. Which I new pay as if not paid before. Bnt if the while I think on thee, dear friend. All losses are restored, and sorrows end. SHAKESPEARE'S NINETIETH SONNET. Then hate me when thou wilt ; if ever, nov ; Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross, Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow. And do not drop in for an after-loss : Ah I do not, when my heart hath sc&ped this sorrow, Gome in the rearward of a oonquer'd woe N0TI8. 387 To linger ont * purposed overthrow. If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, When other petty griefs have done their spite, But in the onset come ; so shall I taste At Hrst the very worst of fortune's might ; And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, Compared with loss of thee will not seem so. MILTON'S EIGHTEENTH SONNET, ON THX ULTK MAflSAORS IN PUDMONT. Atxkos, 0 Lord, Thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones lie Boatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold ; Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old. When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones. Forget qot : in Thy book record their (groans Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 31ain by the ^bloody Piedmontese, that roU'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway, The Mple tyrant ; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who, having leam'd Thy way. Early may fly the Babylonian woe. MILTON'S NINETEENTH SONNET. ON HIS BLINDNSSa. Wh>n I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He, retumi::g, chide ; ** Doth God exact day-labour, light denied ? " I fondly ask : but Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, " God doth not need ^thsr man's yrotk, or Bis own gifts ; who best "(^rpi^^lll^lljpii i.Jlli(, ^pjp imjiil iipilliii It ) % I B ■» ^" JWPWMjiijH^w-"*^' '^ ■,■"-■ W'-r^vv P",f 1- j(;"M" 288 WORDSWCSTH. B«-.ar His mild yoke, they serve Him best ;' Hia state Is kingly : thousands at His bidding speed. And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; They also serve who only stand and waiL" ROSSETTl'S BEAUTY AND THE BIRD, She fluted with her mouth as when one sips, And gently waved her golden head, inclin'd Outside his cage close to the window-blind : Till her fond bird, with little turns and dips. Piped low to her of sweet companionships. And when he made an eud, some seed took sho And fed him from her tongue, which robily Peeped as a piercing bud between her lips. And like the child in Ohaucer, on whose tongue The Blessed Mary laid, when he was dead, A grain, — who straightway praised her namj in song : , Even so, when she, a little lightly red. Now turned on me and laughed, I heard the throng Of inner voices praise her golden head. I MATTHEW ARNOLD'S SHAKESPEARE. Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask. Thou smilest, and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty. Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the Leaven of heavens his dwelling-place. Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foiled searching of mortality ; .^^^^.. And thott, who didst the stars and suube»^^Know, Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honored, self-secure. Didst tread on earth unguessed at. — Better so 1 All pains the immortal spirit must endure, All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. N0TE8L 289 It will be observed that ftven Milton does not show so marked a tarn at the ninth line as the later poets. It has been said that Milton's son- nets shoot rapidly oS like a rocket, and then fall, breaking in a shower id brightness ; some of them, however, have been move aptly deecribed as a trumpet call to duty. The recent sonnets have been weU compared to a waving rising (in the otUave) and gently subsiding as the thought spends itself in beauty. One of the most perfect of the latter class is the sonnet To Night, in chapter* V. Wordsworth's sonnets stand somewhere between Milton's and Matthew Arnold's in form and manner ; though those who know Wordsworth only by his pther works will be surprised at the grace and sweetness of ■uoh sonnets as that To Lady BeauworU, which Hutton so justly praises. in.— On the Extinction of thb Venetian Republic. 3-4. "Since the first dominion of man was asserted over the ocean, three thrcnes of mark beyond all others have been set upon its sands, the thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England." 6. "Eldest Child of Liberty."— " Founded by Christians" in "the year 421." Bead Ruskin's Stones of Venice, first appendix to Vol I. 10. " espouse the everlasting Sea."— There was a ceremony called the Bridal of the Sea, in which Venice figured as the bride. 15. "even the Shade."— In 1797, by the Peace of Campo Formio, Venice was given to Austria. Encyc. Brit., Vol. XIII, page 485. VI. — Thought or a Bkiton on the Subjugation of Switzerland. 7. " a Tyrant."— Napoleon. 12. " that which still is left."—*' And ocean mid his uproar wild speaks safety to his island-child." Read Coleridge's Ode to the Depart- ing Year, XVII.— To Clarkson. 4. "Olaikson."— Thomas Clarkson, 1760-1846, wrote and worked aroinst slavery. In 1794 his health broke down from overwork, also at one time he lost his sight, but he recovered health and sight and died at eighty-six. 9. ** \ Olce."— See line 12. The activity and energy of the octave, and the peace and calm of the 86stet remind one of the third stanza of Shelley's Cloud. « li|«M VHiiaipiilPPPiiP L ^^^ WOBDSWOmTH. XIX — SooRN Not thb Sonnct, 4. "nnlocked his heart."-Hi8 play. «r» objeotiye, his sonnet* ■HDjective. See Browning's ffozue. 6. "Petrarch's wound."— Francesco Petrarca, 1604-1674, one of four great Italian poets, and the first true reviver of learning in medi«. val ?:urope. He had a sad bat romantic attachment to a lady whom he writes of as Laura. 6. " OamoeilS."--The Portuguese epic poet. Bis masterpiece is the JAUiad, He died m great poverty and was caUed " the great.** The Portuguese accent his name on the second, the English on the firat 6. "TaSEO."— 1644-1695 ne of the four great Italian poets. Tasso was a great though ill-balanced genius : a master of love-lyrics. 8-9. "myrtle, cypress. "-The myrtle, sacred to Venus, was the wreath of blrodless victors; the cypress is emblematic of grief and death. 10. ''visionary."— AUudes to the visions of Hell. Purgatory, and ^ 11. "from Faery-land."-AnaUusion to Spenser's great poem, and to a sonnet (the 80th) referring to the sonnet. 14. "a trumpet."— Milton's sonnet to Cromwell will explain this term. XX.— Nuns Pekp Not. 7. ''Pnmess Pells"- Fellsaremoors. . V'/**^^**^®'"~'''^ ^^^^^ <®' ^*"*« ^^ rose-colour) flower common in England. XXni.— Pebsonal Talk. 18- " forms with chalk. "— For dance-figuves. 20. "undersong."— Refrain or acoompanjjaent. XXIV, — GonmswtfK 14. *• Lady."— Desdemona. 16, **TJjiai^"'-'In the Faery Queen, XXV. — GoiroLin>n>. 2. "Nor can I not. "—What figure of speech? «. " genial seasons."— Genial is a pet word of Wordsworth's. 18. "l^eavenly lays."— Specify. 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